


Rooted in the Past

by Sylvan



Series: Not Just Horsemen Come in Fours [2]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-03-03
Updated: 1998-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:58:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3103019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvan/pseuds/Sylvan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Not Just Horsemen Come in Fours, Methos and Grey get to know each other in Paris. Grey tells about being in a concentration camp during WWII.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooted in the Past

---  
  
  
"... the 16th was just an incredible time," came one voice out of the darkness between street lamps.

The speaker and his companion strolled into a pool of dim, yellow light. They were both tall men, carrying in their bearing an energy which brightened the area around them. The taller of the pair had broad shoulders and a ground-eating stride. The other was slimmer and rolled into each step, creating the illusion that he moved more slowly than was actually true. Side-by-side, their arms brushing and fingers occasionally twining together, they seemed quite comfortable with each other. Only a particularly astute observer would notice a hint of shyness in their attitudes. 

The slimmer man continued, his voice deceptively mild yet with the sureness of personal knowledge. "I lived in Rotterdam for about three decades. I worked for a man named Desiderius Erasmus, assisting his translation of Greek and Roman texts." 

"How much did you soft-pedal for him?" 

"None. He wanted the truth above all things, and he knew enough to have recognized if I translated falsely. He even translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin because he did not trust the Church." He paused in mid-step, suddenly introspective. His companion anchored an arm around his waist and waited patiently. At last he spoke again, smiling reminiscently. "He did not like violence. He felt it undignified to fight the Church, because the truth was all that was needed. Martin Luther's reform upset him mightily. I remember he said, 'I laid a hen's egg; Luther hatched a bird of quite a different species'." 

"Why, that sounds Darwinist!" 

"It does, doesn't it? Darwinism would have appalled him." They resumed walking, hands loosely touching, moving into the darkness toward the next pool of light. 

The other man spoke. "That was an interesting century for us. On one side we had the Ottomans, but they never came in force to our area. On the other side was Ivan the Terrible. We were well placed in that none of the fighting ever reached us, but rumors are gifted with Mercury's wings." 

Yes, rumors. Carried by Watchers whose only currency to get close to the Four was to play on their curiosity. 

They felt it simultaneously. The roll and "sound" of another Immortal. Stopping, both listened alertly. A voice snapped out of the darkness well ahead of them. "Come out! I saw you, faggots!" The voice was American and male, mid-Western, perhaps. The two men brushed fingertips questioningly and felt agreement. They ranged forward separately on soundless feet, circling around behind the voice to see if he was alone. It seemed he was. Smelling a rat, he suddenly raced into the light of the street lamp. They could see him now; a thin, rangy man with long, oily brown hair. His blade was a shining French saber he held with clear familiarity. 

They stepped into the pool of light on opposite sides of him, startling him. He wheeled to look at both in turn. The slender man said, "I'd say the 70's." 

"He might be older than he looks, say the 50's." 

"Yes, too tense for the 60's. He might be younger, though. 80's." 

Their subject sputtered furiously. He finally spat out, "I can take two freaks like you any day! Draw your swords!" 

The other men looked at each other again. Then the gray haired man asked curiously, "Why would we want your head? You're much too young to do us any good." 

"MY NAME IS RUSSEL CORRIGAN!!! And you faggots are NOT LEAVING with your heads!"Corrigan looked as though he might have an apoplectic fit, he was so furious. 

"Limited vocabulary," murmured the dark haired man. 

The other snickered, but he was beginning to look irritated. "Which one of us should put this child in his place?" he asked his companion. 

"Let's flip a coin." 

Corrigan, volume increasing with each word, shouted "God DAMN YOU!" He launched himself at the slender man only to be blocked instantly. The counter lunge almost disarmed him. It did spin him around and send him stumbling toward the light-haired man. 

That man stepped back. "Well, child, you must challenge one of us." 

"FINE, mother-fucker! I challenge YOU!" 

The dark-haired man said smoothly, "Wouldn't that negate our being faggots?" 

"I think that would negate our being Immortals," replied the other. "I am Grey, child." 

Furious, Corrigan attacked again. From the first instant it was pathetically obvious he was out of his league. He was blind to this fact and pressed his attack, mistaking Grey's giving ground before him for weakness. Grey led him around the rim of the light, not responding to the young Immortal's string of insults. Methos (for, of course, he was the dark-haired Immortal) added fuel to the fire by yawning when he was in Corrigan's line of sight. Finally, bored with the fight, Grey disarmed the boy, kicked him to his knees and forced his head down. 

"Well that was an educational exercise wasn't it, child?" he asked the helpless man. 

"Fuckin' pervert, fag!" Corrigan gasped out between breaths. "I'll get you! And your skinny friend! I'll get a gang and hunt you down!" 

Grey slammed the boy's head into the cement. There was a brief crunching sound. Corrigan went limp for a moment, then stirred again. Grey's lips were pulled back over his teeth, his eyes murderously dark. "Get a gang and hunt us down," he echoed, his tone a furious hiss. "I think not!" He raised his sword and brought it down in a swift stroke. 

As Corrigan's head rolled into the gutter, Methos backed away to brace himself against a building. Corrigan's body glowed fitfully as the Quickening began. Lightning raced up the nearby light-pole to burst the lamp in a flash of brightness leaving twisted metal in its wake. Freed of that distraction, the main force of the bolts struck at Grey. Like a beast it was, grinding him fiercely in its teeth, its tail lashing down the street to burst the other lamps. The lightning bolts swerved toward Methos, attracted by the depth of his Quickening. He held completely still until he ceased attracting them and they veered away to hit Grey with redoubled force. Through Grey's cry of pain and the distortion of the Quickening, the distant sound of ambulances or fire trucks alerted Methos to another reason besides his anonymity to get both of them well away. As suddenly as it began the Quickening ended, and Methos gathered a dazed Grey up and away. 

Grey was still unsteady on his feet as Methos hauled him bodily through the nearest alley. The older Immortal abruptly doubled back, taking them down into the darkness of a large storm drain. Fortunately the water was barely an inch deep as they hurried through it. A sudden turn to the right, then left behind some rubble, and Methos pulled Grey down with him and laid a finger across his lips. Grey obediently silenced his labored breathing; no small task. They waited in the darkness. A few moments later, running feet beat a disciplined cadence past their hiding place. Methos waited until the echoes died away before he sagged back against the curved wall, breathing a sigh of relief. 

"I have to ask," came Grey's soft voice in the darkness, a slight tremor in his tone. "Was that a member of your society, too?" He sounded plaintive, a hint of pain there. 

Methos reached out to pull Grey close to him, pressing his fingers reassuringly into the taut back. "Yes. I'll explain over dinner. Let's get back home." He brushed his fingers up to Grey's head and tilted it back to kiss his neck. Grey shivered, his normally sensual responses enhanced by the recent Quickening. He nodded wordlessly, conveying trust and trepidation in that one gesture. 

\------------------------------------------

Dinner was a simple affair. Steaks, a spinach and bacon dish, rice and beans. The two men, tensions eased upon returning home, were able to relax in front of the fireplace. This was their third day in Paris. Methos had spent the first two days bringing to life one of his back-up identities, Jason Greene. The house they were ensconced in had been in the Greene "family" for almost two centuries. Like most of the houses in this quarter it was of classic French design, except for a room built 'round a beautiful sculpture of a pair of lovers. The male bore a suspicious resemblance to Methos. One of these days Grey would ask about it, but for now he had more pressing concerns. He wrapped his arms around Methos' chest and rested his head against the other man's shoulders. Methos wriggled back to fit completely into that loose, warm hold and to enjoy the closeness. Grey spoke with a hint of playfulness. "You said you'd explain. Dinner's over, I want to hear a story now." 

"This is a rather strange story," Methos replied, tilting his head coyly. 

"Shall I bribe you then?" Grey tightened his arms and grazed Methos' neck with his teeth. 

The other man shivered. "Bribing that way is not going to get you a story," he said, low and purring. 

Grey bit lightly. "Tell," he commanded, voice soft. 

"Mmm. Okay, okay. It was just about four hundred years ago when I met the most extraordinary mortal..." 

\---------------------------------------------

**1592, Bettin, Eastern Germany**

Rain pummeled his head. The hat he wore seemed no protection and he grumbled in exasperation. The clouds turned the afternoon sun dark almost as if it were already evening. Theron VonFleischmann would have stamped through the streams of water but he had no intention of getting his feet wet. He amended that: wetTER. They were not numb, yet. Why did I move here? he thought irritably. Why didn't I wait until tomorrow to see Frederick? A pointless question. He liked Frederick, and the man's new books were worth a thorough soaking to get an immediate look at them. 

"DOWN METHOS!" someone shouted out of the rain. 

He dropped immediately and rolled, stunned to hear his name but adapting to the situation. Even as he moved he heard an arrow whiz over him. Sword in hand, he coiled to his feet, arms drawn in and sodden fur coat bunched up around him to make himself as difficult a target as possible. Despite his precautions, a second arrow struck him in the thigh. Methos balanced on his uninjured leg; the other one would be useless until he could remove the arrow. Expecting it and ready, he deflected the next arrow. His gut twisted and his pulse hammered as another Immortal came into his range. The other came out of hiding, grinning. 

"So you are the legendary oldest man? Not much to look at," he mocked, and Methos identified his accent as Brussels. "I am Jean Clouet, and you are dead." 

Clouet's tactics were annoyingly effective. Methos was at a considerable disadvantage in the rain on a muddy street with an injured leg, but he did not waste his breath on a response to the verbal taunts. Controlled breathing and concentration muffled the pain in his leg, and he adjusted his balance to favor the injury. He took the higher ground, his good leg on the downslope, allowing gravity to keep the weight off of the other one. Clouet, laughing, set his bow aside. He drew a knight's long sword and closed on Methos. They engaged with a harsh ring of their blades. Clouet lunged forward and Methos pivoted, allowing the sword to stab through his coat. He immediately dumped the coat on top of Clouet's sword, losing his own blade beneath the furs. Smoothly withdrawing his dagger from its hidden sheath, he sliced it along Clouet's sword arm. The other man cursed, his sword tangled in the pile of wet furs, and released it to dance out of Methos' reach. He turned for his bow and gaped. The other weapon was gone. 

Methos raised an eyebrow, recognizing further intervention by his unknown mortal benefactor, though how this person knew his name.... He wrenched the arrow out of his leg and, as his wound healed, stalked Clouet. The expression on the younger Immortal's face was priceless. Disarmed and now facing an angry opponent, Clouet scrambled to get his sword from underneath the fur coat. Methos whirled and pounced on him, shoving him face down into the mud. "Tsk. All that and here is what you got." 

Clouet struggled and Methos allowed him to turn his head. "Release me, you swine!" The youngster's arrogance amused Methos, who chuckled and placed the point of his dagger on Clouet's eyelid. The boy tried to sink into the mud, bravado abandoned. "Please, monsieur! Please, I'll do anything, just leave me my head!" 

Methos cocked his head, backing away from Clouet to retrieve his sword from its place under his coat. The boy's fate was already decided; in part because of his strategy for attack, but also because... "You know my name," Methos said slowly, emphasizing each word. 

"Oui! But I did not know before-" 

Methos swung his sword and took Clouet's head, not allowing him to complete his sentence. The fool was too dangerous to even consider letting go. The Quickening came, as always, with astonishing force. It lit fires that blazed briefly along the rooftops before the driving rain extinguished them. Methos' soul was flayed anew as Clouet was absorbed within him, ghostly grief and resentment flaring to join with his own. Then it was over. Methos gathered his things and fled, hearing the startled voices within the houses on either side of him. 

Someone knew who he was and acted to protect him. Sometimes he wanted badly to meet and talk with this person. Sometimes he grew angry, feeling that he was being played with; someone stoking the fires of his curiosity. If this were some elaborate trap to take his head, he would be sure to take the mortal with him. The incident left him feeling not exactly paranoid but uneasy for days. He watched for any strange mortals, eavesdropped on other people's conversations to see if he would recognize the voice, but to no avail. 

It was his age and perverse sense of humor that came to his aid when the time finally came. Methos was returning from Frederick's house on a cold, sunny day, a new book cradled protectively under his arm. Someone stepped out of the small groups of people passing the other way and matched pace with him. "I was something of the black sheep in the family," the man said. His accent betrayed him as a man raised in Rome. 

His tone was companionable, as if they had known each other for years. Methos did not look at the man, but shifted to be closer. "What made you the black sheep?" 

He could hear a smile in the voice. "Well, I am my father's only admitted heir not born of his wife." 

Methos laughed. He stole a look at the man. Slim, like himself, but shorter. Golden haired with a widow's peak; eyes blue under darker brows, and a long hawkish nose that showed aristocratic lines. Striking. Handsome, but not at all pretty. Absolutely familiar. Methos realized he had seen this man hundreds of times without noticing him. It was a disconcerting feeling but it explained why he could not catch the man when looking for him. Methos had been seeking someone new in the crowds, not this face that was almost a part of him. He realized that long before he would have suspected this particular face of being connected to his mystery, the mortal would have died of old age and the point would have been moot. 

The other man reached out and touched Methos' arm almost reverently, and the Immortal realized that they were not moving, just standing there looking at each other. He shook himself and began walking again. The other stayed just beside him, yet somehow conveyed a sense of following in his wake. Methos asked, "Who are you?" 

"Lefebre d' Arande." 

Methos raised an eyebrow. "Any relation to Michel d' Arande?" 

"Grandson." 

"Ah!" Memory was extraordinary among Immortals. Methos' thoughts ran through everything he knew about Arande, and he was almost amused. Michel d' Arande used to read the New Testament to the king of France, the king's wife Louise and his devout sister, Margaret. Disconcerting, despite the millenia of Methos' life, to realize that had been long enough ago for this fully adult grandson to exist. A faint pain stabbed his heart. Just a few decades ago the scholars of Europe had been united in their pursuit of learning. There were households where only Latin was spoken but the impetus was fading as the energetic reformers aged and died, and the rest of the world spoke other languages. So much left behind, so quickly. He was brought back to the present by a chance meeting with Lefebre's blue eyes. Those eyes held sympathy and fondness. Methos drew a breath as they approached his home. "Come, break bread with me." 

"I would be honored, VonFleischmann." 

\----------------------------------------------------

**Present:**

"And that was how I learned about the Watchers. Lefebre was my Watcher, and he broke all their rules: first by helping me, then by coming out of the shadows to befriend me." 

Grey listened with closed eyes. His hands wandered firmly along Methos' arms, encouraging him to relax. Working on the webbing between the fingers, Grey asked, "But what are these Watchers? Where do they come from? Why do they watch?" 

"They are mortals. There are a few legends even amongst them. Some say they were founded by Aristotle. Whenever they discover an Immortal, they assign someone to record the things that happen in his life, the things he does. Like Erasmus, they wish for the truth above all things. But the law that is foremost in their tradition is not to interfere in our lives. Not to disrupt the Game. To do so is an offense punishable by death. When Lefebre chose to befriend me, he effectively cut himself off from other Watchers. He could not admit to them... he couldn't tell anyone. Only me." 

"It was his choice. Were you lovers?" 

Methos was silent for a very long time. Grey waited patiently. At last Methos said, "No. It was so wonderful to hear my name spoken, to talk about my life. He knew an extraordinary amount about me. Even had intimations about the Horsemen. Yet he liked me, admired me. It was easy to accept because he was mortal. And extraordinary. He still has descendants amongst today's Watchers." 

Grey cocked his head, stroking Methos' palms. "I would think that would not be unusual." 

"Actually, it is. They fell out of the Watchers until a few generations ago. You see, most families raise their children in ignorance of the organization. It's only when they are adults and have proven reliable and dependable that they are recruited. Watchers recruit largely from people who witnessed the existence of Immortality. Funny, equal rights amongst races and sexes has existed constantly in the Watchers from almost the beginning." 

Methos suddenly flowed from Grey's arms and added two logs to the fire. Stirring it with the poker, he sang softly. "Qui vit jamais au monde Ung roy si courageux De se mettre en bataille; Et delaisse de ceulx En qui toute fiance Et qui tenait asseur L'ont laisse en souffrance! Veez la le malheur!" 

Grey listened to the French words; to Methos' rich baritone. He noted that Methos had slipped back into an older dialect. He also noted that, though Lefebre d' Arande had never been Methos' lover, the Immortal had wanted him. Maybe Lefebre taught him that song. An interesting thought, that: What Watchers might teach Immortals... "Achmed Al Khazar was a Watcher, wasn't he?" 

Methos grinned over his shoulder. "Oh yes, he was." 

"He knew so many things that were perfect for Immortals to learn. But how did he find us?" Grey's memory unfolded, as bright and sharp as the day the events had occurred. 

_A sly, desert nomad appeared out of the crowds. His face was so wrinkled by the desert sun, he could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty years old. He arrowed in on them like a fly to honey. "Ah! Rich men of the West and Far East! For a small fee I will tell you of a rare desert blossom that neither wilts nor fades..." Curious, they listened to his tale and learned about the slave-girl who kept dying and coming back to life. Achmed seemed so much like any storyteller until he reached the part of the tale about Ben Sur's continuing abuse of the girl. Then the man broke down. "I can do nothing," he sobbed. "He is destroying a precious miracle and I cannot help her."_

Methos' voice broke into Grey's reverie to answer his question. "He watched an Immortal named Ibn Al Sur, one of Dige's kills." 

Of course. It made absolute sense. Grey shook his head, astonished that he had not thought of the obvious. Leaning forward, he asked, "So what sights shall we see of Paris tomorrow?" 

"Ah, in the afternoon we shall see the Arc de Triomphe, and St. Joseph's." Methos sounded somber on that last word. 

"St. Joseph's?" 

"Where a friend of mine used to live. Where he died. And before you leave we can also see the Boit de Boulogne, Vincennes, Isle de Saint Louis. Notre Dame is a must. The Pantheon, the Louvre, the Palace de Versaille, the Church of the Sacred Heart and several museums..." he paused, a roguish gleam in his eyes, "...the Roman Baths at Odeon." He turned with superb grace and moved back to kneel in front of Grey, who caught his breath at the light in those astonishing eyes. 

Grey leaned forward, brushing Methos' lips with his own and murmured, "Anyplace, anything you want to show me." 

Methos leaned into the touch. There were no words to describe how it felt to have a lover who knew both his name and his dark past, and accepted him without reservation. He would live in the present and not fret over how visible being with Grey made him. Jacob Galati's attacks had forced the Watchers to coalesce, but afterwards they fell back into their familiar patterns of living far apart so that no one could trace them back to the society. The new Watcher on the Four -- on Grey -- would not know Jason Greene or Adam Pierson. Even if the Greene identity were compromised, it was a less-valuable back-up and could be sacrificed without regret. He sighed for one, blissful moment. "There's time," he told Grey quietly. 

Grey chuckled, brushing his nose against Methos'. "We're Immortals. There's always time." 

Over the next five days they wandered through many of the museums around Notre Dame. Paris had a certain symmetry to it. The museums and monuments radiated outward around the cathedral and they could stroll away from it to find the most astonishing beauties. Statues tended to be of humans and often depicted scenes from history or biblical stories. Methos recognized the wistful appreciation in Grey's eyes when a statue was within reach and they could touch the stone. He smiled, thinking the next profession Grey might take up would be sculpting. 

They went to the Louvre twice, as there were far too many objects of extraordinary beauty to appreciate in one trip. In fact, the way Grey behaved, Methos suspected he would take up residence there if he could. There were paintings so evocative of emotion they brought tears to the beholder's eyes. Statues that were too perfect to believe and some too sensual to look at for long without thoughts going astray. Each one was made with loving care by artisans whose dreams seemed to cling to the stone. 

Grey would stop and pivot slowly on his heels, drinking in the sights all around him. Eventually Methos would capture his arm and drag the enthralled man slowly away until Grey stopped pretending to resist and came with him, sometimes barreling forward and almost knocking Methos off his feet. The older Immortal usually responded by dragging Grey behind the nearest bushes and kissing him senseless. 

At the end of the fifth day, they breezed back into the house, laughing. Grey's exuberance was infectious and Methos enjoyed every minute of it. "I don't BELIEVE this city!" Grey announced cheerfully. 

"What don't you believe about it?" 

Grey dropped into a padded chair, stretching his arms and legs until the bones cracked. Letting himself settle in loosely, he grinned up at Methos. "Everywhere you turn there are monuments, magnificent statues. It's almost as bad as being in Mecca!" 

"Except in Mecca everywhere you turn you're on Holy Ground." 

"What mortals can do," said Grey wistfully. 

Methos stepped between Grey's legs and ran his finger along the man's jawline. "Surely you don't begrudge them their gifts?" 

Grey smiled up at him. "No. I used to. That's why I did a stint as an architect." He caught Methos' hand in his own. Closing his eyes he began to explore the hand with his lips, murmuring, "I watched them build St. Basil's Cathedral, and I wanted to do something like that back home. But no matter how hard I studied, or how well I learned the mechanics of the trade..." 

"You couldn't create something like that. I know." Methos stroked Grey's hair with his other hand. 

Grey snaked an arm around Methos' waist and pulled him down onto the chair, shifting to make room. "Now. What next?" he asked playfully. 

"Still want to show you the Church of the Sacred Heart and Jardins et Palais du Luxembourg." Methos brushed his hands lightly along Greys' body down to the waist and lightly along the thighs, threatening to change the angle. "You KNOW I'm not going to show you ALL the interesting places." 

Grey looked hurt. "Why not?" 

"Well you won't have a reason to come back if I do, will you?" Methos asked, a devilish gleam in his eye. He turned over, away from Grey. 

"You're a great reason to come back." Grey pulled Methos' to him, shifting the man's body. With Methos' back pressed against his chest he wrapped his legs around the other man's, settling the two of them more comfortably in the chair. He lifted his hands to stroke the older man's temples. "So, tell me about that statue." 

"What statue?" Methos asked, his eyes closing under the touch. 

"The one of you." 

"Oh, THAT statue!" He grinned. "Remember I was telling you about how incredible the 16th century was?" 

"Yeeeees?" 

"Well, the artist who sculpted the statue was part of what made it so incredible. She was a most unusual woman, even then." He considered his memories carefully before speaking again. "This was 1522, May 23rd. A former student and I went to one of those wild parties the aristocrats threw..." 

\--------------------------------------------------------

**1522, Paris-Area**

When he thought about it, there was not a century or a decade which did not qualify as a "strange and interesting time". At least, that was what he said when Hugh Fitzcairn showed up at his door and invited him to a party, insisting that he attend on the grounds that this century was more interesting than all the centuries before. That Fitz would think so was not surprising. He was only three hundred and thirty-two years old. 

The small, wiry Englishman, with his almost-blonde curls and bright eyes, left a trail of swooning women behind him everywhere he went. It was safe enough, now that he was Immortal...; but his first death, at age thirty-four, had been at the hands of a woman's jealous husband. He breezed through Immortal life, charming all but the most evil of their kind, and either escaping or taking the heads of those determined to attack. Recognizing an unintentional penchant for trouble, Methos blessed the fact that Fitz was already a talented swordsman and left the youngster to his own devices as soon as it was safe to do so. Fitz never really noticed that Methos was avoiding him, somehow able to find the teacher he knew as Michael Adamson whenever he wanted to. 

Despite Methos' best efforts to resist, he found himself agreeing to accompany Fitz to the party. There was no reason not to go. His medical practice was flourishing. The little touches he added from centuries of experience were too subtle to attract attention. His identity here was secure. Of course it set Fitz to laughing so hard he almost could not get off the floor. "Docteur Adam Michaelson!" the Englishman repeated a few times, holding onto his sides. 

"So it's not very original. I've just become fond of using 'Adam' in my name." Methos tried to look angry, glaring down at the laughing man, but it was just impossible. He finally consented to go to the party just to get Fitz to shut up. 

The party turned out to be a relatively small affair. There were perhaps fifty guests, a large number of them artisans. Fitz was the pet of the hostess, a beautiful woman whose husband was off at court. Adam just shook his head. He quite enjoyed the artisans, though. Sculptors, poets, writers and painters all. The gossip was centered around Louise de Savoie, the mother of the king, and the man she was enamored with, Charles de Montpensier. Everyone was talking about how he hated her, and she used her son to get revenge for being scorned. 

In a brief lull between conversations, one man caught Adam's eye. An over-dignified gentleman perhaps in his forties, a little shorter than average. He did not seem so much standoffish as reserved. Adam was trying to figure out what it was about the man that drew his attention, when he realized he was looking at a woman. It was something in the arch of her neck, the way her hands were shaped, that gave her away; signs too subtle for most people to notice without years of experience, and Adam certainly had that. He made his way over to Fitz and his lady. "Who is that?" 

Fitz turned his head to look. "Oh, that is Antoine Aloisi, the sculptor. He got into it rather late, though I hear he is quite good." 

"Fascinating. Introduce us." 

Fitz grinned, begging his lady's indulgence, and the two men crossed the room together. 

Aloisi glanced up at their approach, clearly girding himself -- er, herself -- to dissuade them from bothering him. Or her. Adam found himself grinning and noted in the controlling corner of his mind the imperative to refer to Aloisi as male. Sculpting was not considered a profession for a Lady; she must want it very badly to maintain this charade. He studied the eyes in the face. They were a promising blue-gray color, possessing that otherworldly gaze marking the artist. Adam's ironic amusement threatened his control, and he forcibly pulled his mouth into an almost-straight line. As a man, Aloisi's face was a little too rounded, but otherwise natural. Fitz, making quick introductions, hastened off to rejoin their hostess, leaving Adam alone with Aloisi. 

Adam caught a caught a hint of appraisal in Aloisi's eyes, an instant of interest quickly masked by the pretense of irritation. That was good. It meant she had an interest in men. Adam scolded himself for not asking for more details before coming over to meet her. Perhaps Aloisi was said to have a sister, cloistered in their home, a sister who never saw any visitors.... 

"You find me amusing?" Aloisi asked, his tone a hint of annoyance spread thinly over an abundance of secret laughter. 

Adam forcibly restrained his smile as it persisted in breaking past the confines of his nose. "It is your sister's situation that I find amusing," he replied in his warmest confidential tones. "I would like to see her and ascertain her condition." 

Aloisi seemed to scramble for words in surprise. "Docteur Michaelson, she has already been examined by the best medical men!" 

"What did they conclude?" Adam asked curiously, wondering what the excuse would be. 

Aloisi rolled his eyes. "LEECHES! Dozens of leeches to draw out the ill humors. If I were to permit all the blooding they wished for my dearest sister, she would be dead of the loss within hours." 

Adam laughed. How many years had this woman been doing this? He was delighted. "And what is the name of your sister, Monsieur Aloisi?" 

"You do not know? Her name is Marie." The interest in those eyes was less casual now, more wistfully appreciative. "You do not care for the application of leeches, then?" 

"Ah, I have studied medical history. Leeches are useful for many things. These days, I believe they are over-used as a remedy." 

Aloisi nodded agreement, still watching Adam with cautious curiosity. "You have a most peculiar accent, young man." 

"I lived in Rome for some time." 

His face brightening, the sculptor took Adam's elbow and propelled him towards the banquet table. "I have never been away from Paris! Tell me about Rome, Docteur!" 

They spent the rest of the party in conversation, ignoring everyone else. Before they parted, Adam allowed himself to be cajoled into meeting again to pose for some preliminary sketches for a sculpture Aloisi intended to design. At first he pretended to resist. "Ah, Monsieur Aloisi, I am too thin! Hardly the image of masculine beauty you want!" 

"No, Docteur. Your face has fascinating bone-structure. I am certain the rest of your body is equally pleasing to the eye." 

Thus, Adam came to pose for Aloisi. He would stand in whatever position requested, the room and his naked body warmed by a fire, and they would chat as Aloisi sketched. They talked of Rome, Paris, history, and new findings in the medical field. Aloisi was a perfect gentleman. At first, it was only on rare occasions that Adam caught the sculptor's eyes on him with other than professional detachment. As time passed those occasions became less rare. He was not surprised. He knew what he looked like: a man in the prime of his life, limber, and long-limbed; athletic, like an acrobat -- or a man who daily practiced with his sword. His natural fluidity and grace made most of the local men look like toads. 

He found her enjoyable. Besides her choice of lifestyle, she was an articulate, well-informed person. She listened as well as she spoke. The urge to share more of himself with her was thwarted by the need to keep his Immortality a secret, but it soon found an outlet in a low flame of desire, kindled by her growing interest. He would regale her with bawdy tales of the world-traveler Methos, which was the closest he would come to telling her about himself. Of course, when he told her about the mysterious land at the bottom of the world whose inhabitants were as dark as Africans, she insisted that was impossible. She was equally doubtful about wallabies, but he let that go. After all, it had taken him days to believe his own eyes, looking at those creatures. 

He drew her to him with his tales and sense of humor. They formed a habit of sitting across from each other on a bench after he finished posing each day, unwilling to end their conversation. Day by day he gradually closed the distance between them; and then one day, before she thought to move away, he laid her down and closed his mouth over hers. Her lips parted beneath his, and he would have drowned there if he could, but she suddenly came to herself and pushed him away. 

"No?" he asked softly. He plead with his eyes. 

She licked her lips and returned his regard, her eyes dark like storm clouds. "No, I only desire members of the opposite sex." 

He almost laughed aloud. He did permit warmth and amusement to show in his eyes. "Truly? Let me change your mind." He bent to taste the flesh of her ear before she could object, his hands working at the fastening of her coat. 

She pressed against him for an instant, then fought herself down. "Please..!" she whispered tightly. 

He again swept his lips over hers, slipping his tongue between her teeth to run lightly along the flesh behind. Shifting down, he pulled aside her collar and stroked and nipped at the flesh revealed. Her body shook as her legs slipped apart. When he slid his hand between them and pressed upwards, she moaned and reached her strong sculptor's hand down to stop him. "I think you could change your mind," he whispered. 

"I don't want to disappoint you," she gasped out. He almost forgot that she was pretending to be a man until she managed to speak. "A - Adam... do you like women, too?" Her voice was small and tentative. 

Yielding, he turned his head so their cheeks were pressed together. "Yes, I do like women. Just as much." She sought to push his hand away, but he had all the leverage. He shifted his fingertips in and caught her groan between his lips, her mouth under his. 

Her body was trembling wildly. He used careful fluttering movements to keep her that way. Just as he began to move his head down again she gasped out, "I am a woman!" 

He raised his head and looked down into her eyes as if amazed. Parting his lips to speak, instead he tilted his head and did a quick survey of the body beneath him. Meeting her eyes again, he let her see that he understood. "You are Marie, then?" 

Her skin flushed, her lips parted, her eyes wide and black, she nodded. He swooped down and kissed her again. Breaking away for just a moment, he smiled and said, "I am very pleased to meet you." 

\----------------------------------------------------

**Paris, Present**

An explosion of pleasure raced through his body. He gasped, opening his mouth, and hard, strong lips closed over his, taking his breath away. For a time, all thought was blotted out, and he did nothing but respond to the lips on his. Just before he felt that he would have broken apart, and turned the touch around to return the overwhelming pleasure, the lips withdrew from his and the fingers touching the back of his neck shifted, breaking the circuit of sensation. Methos was wedged into the chair, Grey half over him. Having temporarily forgotten what he was doing, he stared up into gray eyes. Learned that in Greece, did you? he wondered. 

"You were lost in the past, Methos," Grey told him gently and brushed noses. 

Methos closed his eyes, reordering his thoughts to give a coherent response. "This is a memory I enjoy reliving." 

Grey grinned, leaning on his elbow. "I can see that. One thing puzzles me, though." 

"Oh? What is that?" 

"Why didn't you just tell her you knew she was a woman?" 

"Hmm." Methos considered the question for a long moment. There were any number of reasons, really. "At first because she worked so hard with the disguise. It was my experience which gave her away, not any carelessness on her part. And then when I came to want her... it was because I," he hesitated, embarrassed. "I wanted to see how she would handle the situation. I enjoyed myself very much, seducing her." 

"And afterwards? Did you still enjoy her as much?" 

"Yes. Our biggest decision was whether Antoine would be rumored to keep a young man as a lover, or whether it would be Marie." 

Grey threw his head back and laughed. Brushing tears from his eyes he began a gentle exploration of Methos' chest with one broad hand. "And what happened next?" he added almost casually. 

Methos closed his eyes to concentrate on feeling Grey's touch. "We were together about ten years, then I had to die and move out of Paris. I may not like the people here, but I love the city. Advantage of the lack of technology back then; sometimes moving only ten miles was enough for us to hide what we are." 

"You never told her." 

"I've been married sixty-eight times. I never told any of them, either." 

Grey shifted to look into Methos' eyes, frowning slightly. "That's about one wife for every seventy-three years. Had a harem or two, did you? And did not stay with any of them throughout their whole life, or tell them the truth?" 

Methos raised his eyebrows, a little annoyed by the line of questioning. "Why would I tell them the truth?" Catching Grey's teasing smile, he glared for a moment before turning pensive. "Rather a lot of them did not live very long. I have lost wives to plague, to invaders, to robbers, to childbirth. All the myriad ways a mortal can die. And I have had to leave them simply because I was not aging. I usually left them well-provided for." 

"Usually," Grey repeated mildly. 

"You know something about the worst of my history." 

Grey brushed his fingers over the down-turned lips. "Something about it, yes." He playfully investigated the angle of Methos cheekbones. shifting a leg to rub it against a more tender portion of his lover's anatomy. Methos shivered and pulled Grey closer to him. He stroked down Grey's ribs and past, to his hip. Grey closed his eyes for a brief second. Opening them he looked curious. "How can you desire women and men equally? They are very different." 

This drew a low chuckle from Methos. With a heave, he freed himself and reversed their positions, Grey under him. "What do you mean, 'how'? There's no how to it. I just do. I always have." 

"Well, why? Was your birth culture very permissive? Or did it insist on bisexuality?" 

Methos shrugged, his eyes traveling slowly over Grey's face as if planning an attack or a seduction. "I don't remember." 

This statement, made with the indifference of millennia, surprised Grey. He studied the darkened eyes but saw neither the too-innocent look he was familiar with from when they first met, nor playful joshing. "How can you not remember?" 

"My memories really begin with my first Quickening. Before that, everything is a blur." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "'The past is like a cloud. Easily seen from a distance; misty and intangible when I try to grasp it.'" 

"Who are you quoting?" 

"Wendy and Richard Pini," Methos answered with a smile. 

Grey had no idea who they were. He did, however, know when someone was trying to avoid a subject. "Equally? I've known people who would take women but prefer men, and the opposite. How do you claim equally?" 

Methos leaned his forehead down to rest on Grey's. The subject, though it seemed of great interest to Grey, was not one he dwelled on, and to answer it he had to think. Finally he said, "The human body is made to feel. Everything else is just cultural. It is easy to say 'sometimes I prefer the strength and dominance of a man,' but not all men are strong or dominant. As it is easy to say ''I enjoy the fragility and yielding of a woman,' but many women are neither fragile nor yielding. I have met men who were so astonishing and singular that I never met another man like them. I have met women exactly like them. And it goes the other way around." 

"That's an interesting statement. Never another like them except a member of the opposite sex." Grey frowned. Suddenly he asked, "Did you meet these people in the same lifetimes?" 

Methos thought about that question for a moment, reviewing those times in his memory. "Actually... well, no." 

"Then maybe they are the same people, reincarnated." 

Methos grinned again. "Perhaps. Then why should I deny myself that lover just because they have become another sex?" 

Grey groaned. "I walked right into that one," he grumbled. He snaked his arms around Methos' waist and pulled the other man tight against him. "Don't you die on me and come back as a woman." 

"I have no intention of dying." Methos shifted slightly and pushed Grey farther back into the chair. He brought his lips close enough to flutter against the other man's and felt him draw in a deep breath. "Made to feel, Grey. Like you. So sensual." He laced his fingers through Grey's and placed their hands over their heads. Feeling the man's heartrate accelerate, Methos traced the shape of Grey's lips with his tongue. "Brash, obnoxious, yet considerate. So considerate." Grey's lips trembled open and Methos took the offering until they were both lightheaded. But Methos drew back slightly as Grey arched up, and looked down into the deep, dark eyes. "In this state, vulnerable." He moved his hips in small circles, and Grey gasped, his eyes closing. Now Methos could address the issue that puzzled him, one Grey had avoided these last several days. "Why did you take Russel Corrigan's head?" 

Grey jerked. He made an effort to free his hands, but Methos did not permit it. The dark eyes opened, just a hint of abnormal brightness in them. The intimate, physical exposure Methos had induced in Grey tended to have psychological effects, making him less able to resist answering a question he had avoided already three times since the killing. Finally, Grey said quietly, "Because of his threat." 

"And what of it?" Methos asked seriously. 

Grey turned his head, avoiding his partner's steady gaze. Methos cheated, his gentle movements bringing a flush to the other man's cheeks until he had to meet Methos' eyes again. "I only once discounted such threats. It was a civilized society. I foolishly imagined such things could never happen." He broke off, closing his eyes. His face was pale and his hands in Methos' were cold. 

"What happened?" Methos asked gently. 

"Nazis took power." Grey opened his eyes again and looked up, and the haunted expression was too much for Methos to bear. He released Grey's hands and brought his own down to cup the man's face, his fingers warming the ashen skin. Grey blinked, trying to clear the tears from his eyes. "Joseph and I were among the first picked up." The dam broken Grey began to tell the tale of the only period in his life that exceeded the trauma of his brief encounter with Kurgan, twenty-two hundred years earlier. 

* * *

**Part 2: Germany December 11th, 1932**

Grey was at loose ends. This time his attack had fallen first. He had defeated the woman, but it had been very close. His part of the attack over, he kept to the opposite side of the city from what his surveillance had marked as hers. He found himself thoroughly astonished by the people he had encountered in the four days since his arrival in Berlin. There was a not-so-subtle burning resentment in the air. It was muffled by time but broadened by the number of people who felt it. He knew why: not only were they angry because of how "The War to End All Wars" ended for them - resenting the fact that they still felt the heels of foreign governments on their backs - but now their economy was in a shambles. The stock market crash in America had spread all over the world and hyperinflation was destroying the quality of German life. Aside from this pervasive resentment they were the same as people everywhere: prejudices and hatreds, loves and beauty. It was all quite interesting and could lead anywhere. 

Grey stopped at an open newsstand to glance through the headlines. There were only the usual articles, so like those of every country. The angry articles raging about Jews jumped out at him. He pursed his lips in wry sadness. These Jews got short shrift. They were used to it, though, suffering cold intolerance and outright persecution from non-Jews for longer than he had been alive. Grey's senses stirred slightly, interrupting his musings. Feeling the weight of eyes upon him, he glanced over to meet the crystalline blue stare of a young man, perhaps just turned eighteen. Grey hid his smile and looked back down at the paper as if he had not noticed the man. Those eyes, the windows to the soul, spoke appreciation and curiosity. Grey easily identified sexual interest when it was aimed his way. He set the paper down and idly flipped through a magazine as he wondered how much things had changed. 

This was not his first time in modern Germany. Forty years earlier he had befriended Adolf Brand, an intelligent man who published a journal called Der Eigene. Reading a copy was what brought Grey to him. The journal was a celebration of male art, literature, and camaraderie. It had superb articles, some truly erotic photographs, and personal ads for homosexual German men to meet each other. Delighted by both the journal and its publisher's bravery, Grey had sought out Brand, then stayed in Germany for almost a decade as Brand persevered in the face of persecution and occasional attacks. The man had even spent two months in jail, having been arrested for distributing "lascivious writings." Just before Grey went home, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee formed and largely took on the task of attempting to have Paragraph 175, the law under which homosexuals were persecuted, repealed. Grey had heard that after the Great War the Germans loosened up to such a degree that hundreds of homosexual bars opened and periodicals were openly, freely published. Back in Berlin, and separated, for now from his companions, he found it to be true. Many homosexuals had joined the National Socialist party, with its promise of a restoration of national prestige. Grey cast his eye with interest upon the party. It glorified manhood and promised wealth to those who supported it. Still, its running undercurrent of racial hatred made Grey uneasy. Ever since Maroofus, he had been aware in subtle ways of the difficulties of the widespread, clannish Israelites. It was easily possible for those people to come under attack here. And now there were new weapons to contend with. 

Grey shook his head, his thoughts having come full circle. He and Tran had long ago decided on a policy of non-involvement. Individuals they could help or protect but groups - populations - were on their own. 

"Excuse me," a voice broke into his thoughts. He met the eyes of the young man who had been staring at him. "Where are you from?" 

"England," Grey answered. He attempted to look annoyed but could not quite stop the smile on the edge of his lips. 

"You're a long way from home. I'm Jo Heger," the young man announced, holding out a hand. 

Grey smiled and took the proffered hand. "John Grey." 

The conversation that followed was mostly inconsequential. The words that were spoken meant nothing except to fill the silence between two strangers. Meaning lay in the curve of their lips and their sidelong, measuring glances. Grey analyzed Jo Heger and was amused at what he concluded. Sure of himself, the boy had probably never been turned down. Grey could imagine a trail of broken hearts behind this young man, a boy with fleeting interests who thought to add a foreigner to the feathers in his cap. Perhaps it was time someone turned the tables on him. And damned if he wasn't beautiful: fair-haired with dark brows, a truly sultry, full-lipped mouth, and those wide-set, crystalline eyes. Grey made his decision without regret, and with a true sense of cruel mischief. When the conversation, which truly took place without words, came to its end and Jo invited Grey to come with him, the Immortal refused. Responding to the quickly masked astonishment in the boy's eyes, Grey drew a carrot (figuratively speaking) and waved it in front of him. "I'll be in the area for about two weeks for business. Here is the number of the hotel I'm staying at. I'm in room 231. Call me sometime, you can show me around Bettin, if you like." 

While he waited for the others to finish their challenges, Grey entertained himself with Jo, spending evenings as the boy's guest in all the hottest nightspots. Jo was doing his level best to show off for Grey: dancing, he showed himself to be well coordinated, and in conversation he was well-versed in all the latest gossip and surprisingly passionate about his own interests and accomplishments. As his contribution to the courtship, the Immortal drew the youngster into his own habit of walking for an hour late at night. As they walked, he asked Jo questions. Though Jo was reluctant to talk about his family, Grey wormed out of him that he was one of twelve brothers. He had not seen his family in over two years. The reason was not hard to guess. Jo's father, he revealed, was a staunch, sober traditionalist. His mother was a gentle, saintly woman. Jo's voice became brittle whenever he talked about them. Now he worked as a courier, travelling here and there. 

"How is it you can afford to take me dancing, Jo?" Grey asked one evening. 

The boy's cautious glance swept Grey's innocent face quickly. "I save my money." 

"I know how much couriers get paid. Did a rich uncle die?" 

The boy's steps faltered and he looked down at the stones beneath his feet. He shrugged. "I've never spent money on anyone before. Consider yourself special." 

Grey was touched in spite of himself. "I do, really." 

The mortal said hesitantly, "I have a lot of money saved. My past lovers bought me things that I would sell. When I get rich, I'll be the one who-" he stopped speaking and looked away. Finally, he said, "I'll be the one who makes the decisions." 

Grey, as much as he enjoyed the dancing and the nightclubs, required these companionable walks and quiet talks. He made no moves on Jo, which clearly puzzled the boy no end. Jo was used to older men trying to buy his favors: being the courter rather than the courtee was a new experience for him. Grey, by keeping his distance and yet hinting that a more intimate relationship was possible, kept Jo in suspense. The mortal kept trying to force the issue: he would sometimes reach over and run his hand firmly up Grey's thigh. Grey automatically caught the roving hand but, as time passed, did so with less conviction. He could not help it. He could see how Jo, flitting from lover to lover, was desperately trying to fill the void left by his family. 

That last evening before Grey would rendezvous with the others the next day, he reached out and stroked Jo's chin. This was the first time Grey initiated the contact between them and Jo froze, his eyes wide, hopeful and wondering. Grey withdrew his hand slowly, delighted by the feel of Jo's skin. Damn, he thought, I'm falling for him. Grey would not have thought it possible from their first meeting. Yet it was often true of mortals that a great deal lurked below the surface and Grey had found some delightful depths to Jo. There was a compelling need in the mortal. They resumed walking, Grey deep in thought as he reviewed the schedule at the farm. He said suddenly, "I can come back next month." 

A small sound broke from Jo. The boy clenched his fists, knuckles white. He kept the tension out of his voice, though. "I'll wait. When will you be back?" 

Amused, Grey smiled slightly. Anything could happen in a month. He wondered, would Jo close up again, or lose interest and break more hearts? Well, the mortal was yet young, and Grey certainly had time. 

\------------------------------------------------------

**January 21st, 1933**

Grey sent a letter to let Jo know when he would be in. However, much to his astonishment, the boy came to pick him up at the airport. Jo was dressed in a brown, very uniform-like outfit. He stood taller, with more self-confidence and seemed more mature. Almost militaristic. He had a car, one of the newer models. Grey stared at the vehicle, then looked at Jo's smug expression. "You decided to stop saving your money?" 

Jo laughed. "No, I have a better job. I'm a secretary for a Very Important Person. It's not MY car, but I can use it when I'm off." An apprehensive shadow passed briefly through his sunlit eyes, and Grey wondered what kind of appreciation that Very Important Person might want of Jo. 

Grey said cheerfully, "Well, at least I'll arrive at my hotel in style!" 

"I cancelled your booking." 

Startled and slightly put out, Grey stared hard at Jo. "I beg your pardon?" 

The mortal had the grace to blush. "I have an apartment. It's not fancy, but I was thinking you could stay with me." Under Grey's steady gaze, Jo turned bright red. His shoulders drooped suddenly and he said in a ghostly voice, "Forget it, I'm sorry. I'll book you a new room." 

"I'd like to see your place before I decide," Grey allowed, softening in the face of Jo's chagrin. 

Hope lit Jo's eyes and straightened his frame. He opened the passenger-door for Grey with a grand flourish, and they went to his place. 

It was a fair-sized apartment, but spartan. Grey allowed Jo to take his jacket, pretending to ignore the way Jo slid his hands along Grey's biceps. The boy brought wine and glasses for both of them, watching Grey's eyes. The Immortal kept his lashes coyly at half-mast. He wondered how much of this maturity Jo was displaying was an act, and how much real. Ordinary glass, he noted. Jo had a better place, but he was cutting corners where he could. "What have you been doing?" Grey asked. 

Jo drew himself taller, a gleam in his eye. "Not much. I joined the Sturmabteilung." He waited for Grey's surprised reaction and was clearly pleased with it. "We will revolutionize Germany. The Fuhrer will lead us to glory!" 

Grey cocked his head, thinking about the news reports on the things Adolf Hitler said. "Your Fuhrer blames the Jews for all the ills of Germany. He is sure to make life here difficult, if not impossible for them." 

Jo tossed his head defiantly. "Who is to say he is wrong? They hoard money. They ostracize outsiders. 'Strangers,' they call them." 

"And what did they call YOU, Joseph?" 

The name was a guess and it hit home. Jo went pale as though someone had struck him. Grey watched him over the edge of the glass. Finally, Jo bit his lip and sagged down into a chair. "He called me an abomination." He balled his fists and looked away. "My father. They saw me with my lover. Father and Reuben, my eldest brother, threw everything I owned out into the street. They even threw out the chair I usually sat in at supper. They said I tainted everything I touched. My mother wept, but she couldn't - wouldn't - do anything to stop them." Pale though he was, Jo went on to explain how his lover had suggested he go to Berlin, far from his family. "I couldn't love. I couldn't let anyone close enough to hurt me. Then I met you and..." Jo buried his face in his hands. He stilled his trembling body and looked up into Grey's eyes. "I've always liked older men. You remind me of my father," Grey's eyebrows shot up, "and I wanted to take you, make you crazy with desire for me, then push you away as my father did me. Only you are different. We come together so easily, and as easily we part. But you want more, or," Jo looked beseechingly into Grey's eyes. "You aren't just toying with me, are you?" 

Grey conveniently forgot that he had begun this doing just that. He reached out and cupped Jo's cheek. "No. Or I wouldn't have come back." 

Jo let out an explosive breath. He caught Grey's wrist in one hand and used the other to grab a handful of the Immortal's shirt. "I'll beg if you want," he began. 

"No begging," Grey cut him off. 

A subtle change came over Jo's face, his eyes bore deep into Grey's. "No begging," he agreed and yanked Grey over. The Immortal used the opportunity to throw his weight forward, toppling the chair. They ended up on the floor; Grey on top, pressing the length of his body over Jo's. 

"Hi!" he said cheerfully. 

Jo burst out laughing. He flipped them over, grinning with delight. 

They never made it to the bedroom that night. 

\-----------------------------------------------------

On January 30th, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. Except for the Sturmabteilung, or the SA, and the Schutzstaffel, the SS, being sworn in as auxiliary police, Grey and Jo were largely absorbed in each other and indifferent to the goings-on. It wasn't until April 11th, when a decree from the Nazis declared that anyone with a non-Aryan parent or grandparent - particularly if that person were Jewish - was non-Aryan, that Grey began to feel pangs of worry. He wondered if he could convince Jo to leave Germany with him. Grey was not expected back until spring, but... 

One evening in bed, Grey asked carefully, "Joseph, YOU are Jewish. Don't they worry you, Hitler and his speeches?" Grey asked. 

"Oh, come, come!" Jo sat up, his eyes sparkling playfully. He put his hand on his chest and said with great dignity, "I am secretary for Rohm himself, you know. Hitler also speaks against homosexuals, yet many of us are and he trusts us." Abandoning dignity he edged over to sit across Grey's abdomen. "These speeches are just to get the rabble to support him. He will give our country back its self-respect!" Plopping down, Joseph gripped Grey's head like a vise, gazing into his eyes and measuring the hunger there. "However, YOU are not in the SA and you are foreign. If he arrests you, I will protect you. I will keep you prisoner in my home, and as long as you please me, you will be safe," he murmured. His eyes were lit with seductive mischief. "Sometimes I will tie you to my bed and grease you up. Then I will at last be inside you. And sometimes, if you are VERY good, you may tie ME up." 

Grey closed his eyes to feel Joseph's hot thighs and breath against his skin. The young man's aggressive side was enticing. "I will think about letting you tie me up," he said softly. 

"Yes, letting me. Think of it, John! Mine to do with as I please." Joseph's touches were rough and arousing. "Wouldn't you like, just once, to be out of control?" 

There was no conversation the rest of the night. 

\----------------------------------------------------

Grey went back to the farm and did not return until summer. He came to spend the warm season with Jo. One day, a few weeks after he arrived, Grey was limbering up. He straightened each finger in turn, then moved on to the larger body parts; arms, legs, torso. A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Jo was leaning against the door, a thoughtful smile on his face. "You do that attractively, John." 

Grey smiled lazily, sat down and crooked a finger at the mortal. Jo walked over to stand in front of him. Grey shifted forward, his eyes half-closed, and trailed his tongue slowly over his lips. Jo tossed his head. He asked suddenly, "Have you ever had sex with a woman?" 

Grey looked full at him, startled. "Why?" 

"A lot of men your age have," Jo said, matter-of-factly. 

Grey blinked. He thought, You have NO idea. "You're asking me this NOW?" 

Jo looked down at him curiously. "Were you married?" 

Grey snorted. "No!" 

"Was it rape, then?" 

"NO! I have never raped a woman!" Grey snapped, glaring at Jo. 

The mortal leaned down and placed his hand firmly on Grey's crotch. "You've raped men, then." 

Grey shoved Jo's hand away, the color high in his cheeks. He stood abruptly, forcing the mortal to look up at him. Jo seemed unperturbed by Grey's icy gaze. Finally, the taller man looked away and muttered, "It was an unimaginably long time ago. And I didn't think of it as rape." 

"What DID you think of it as?" Jo asked curiously. 

"The right of the conqueror," Grey said, flatly. He looked searchingly into Jo's eyes, then away again. "It wasn't until I was much older that I realized... forcing yourself on another is wrong, under ANY circumstances." He had been over four hundred when this realization hit him. Old guilt swirled through him, making him feel small and weary. "Rape is a power-thing. A way to reduce the other person. It leaves permanent damage; not necessarily physical, either. Very few people live long enough to quite recover." 

Jo caught Grey's chin and forced the taller man to look at him. "You learned this when you were raped?" 

Grey swallowed past the lump in his throat. "No, I've somehow managed to escape being raped. I have a friend who was, many times when he was young. He would wake from such nightmares and I began... began to realize that it was people like me who did that to him." Grey shuddered convulsively. "It is being on top, in control. Forcing obedience, especially from the strong." 

Jo frowned thoughtfully. "My father would - is that what heterosexual sex is? A kind of rape since the woman must obey?" 

Grey choked on a startled laugh. "No. It can be, but any sex CAN be." 

The mortal stroked Grey's chin. "So, tell me about this woman you were not married to and you didn't rape. She must have been exceptional, because you don't even notice women beyond the fact that they exist." 

Grey groped for words. Jo was asking for more from Grey, for something private that meant opening a great deal of Grey's own emotions. Pride and shame were heavily entwined in the answer to the boy's question. Grey finally thought to himself that it did not matter if he told Jo; the mortal would take Grey's secrets to the grave. "At least, I hope so," he muttered aloud, shuddering at the thought of those eyes clouded over in death. 

"Hope so, what?" 

"Ah, I hope you never tell anyone about this." 

"I solemnly swear. Now, please tell me?" 

Grey sat down on the couch, his arms draped over his thighs, and stared at his fingers. "We really haven't changed subjects, here," he said quietly. Jo sat down next to him and placed a hand over Grey's, waiting. Grey chose his words carefully before speaking. "She was a household servant, and her master was a cruel, sadistic monster. We took her, and another servant, away with us. She was drawn to my dear friend and he to her." Grey glanced up to see Jo's puzzled frown. The boy said nothing, silently urging Grey to continue his story. "She desired him, but was terrified of sex. She had no way of knowing what normal lovemaking was like, and she told her friend about her difficulties. It was he who came to me." Grey smiled, the memory warm and amusing. He had been standing up, a newborn filly in his arms, when Achmed walked in with a most astonishing proposal. "He said he came to me because I did not desire women. Therefore, I would be able to take the time to teach Mariah that a body can feel pleasure in sex, without getting caught up in my own needs. I don't think I've ever been more flabbergasted by a request. He finally made me promise to think about it. Then several days later he cornered us in a room and explained his proposal again. Mariah felt much the same way I did about it. But I started to watch her. How she flinched from contact with almost everyone; the blended agony and desire in her eyes when she looked at Dige... and it occurred to me that in helping her recover, I could in some small way make up for the rapes that I committed in my youth." 

Jo stroked Grey's fingers. "So you taught Mariah the pleasures of the flesh?" 

"Yes. She was a very good student, too. And at last she went to Dige." Grey stopped again, his throat tight. He swallowed a few times and continued. "For many years I could not look at them together without feeling jealous. That was totally unexpected. Oh, it faded over time, but there are still times-" 

"You wanted HER!" exclaimed Jo. 

Grey shied away, blushing furiously. "Not exactly. You can't... pour that much of yourself into a person and not feel that they belong to you." 

Jo shook his head, smiling slightly. "I think you love her." 

Grey flinched. "Perhaps. But not the way she needs to be loved." 

Jo suddenly pressed his lips to Grey's ear. "Heterosexual men often mock us, call us girls. Is making love to me much like making love to her?" 

"No, there are quite a few differences." 

"Show me," Jo demanded. 

Grey studied Jo's expression. Mischief mingled with deadly seriousness. Jo needed to know. It took Grey a moment to switch gears and think about how to show this to Jo. He glanced around the room, looking for an appropriate place. "I can demonstrate, but it's physically impossible to truly show you." 

"Then demonstrate what IS physically possible." 

"Then take off your clothes," Grey replied, standing up. He went to the wall and sat on the floor, watching Jo. The boy looked perplexed, but obeyed. He pulled his shirt up with deliberate sensuality, grazing his nipples with his fingers. Grey found himself holding his breath as the young man performed for him. Jo slid his trousers down, slowly, deliberately stretching the fabric tight over his erection. Grey watched, very pleased with the young man's grace. When Jo was naked, Grey tapped the floor between his legs. "Sit here, facing away from me." Jo tossed his head, then walked with deliberate dignity over to Grey and did as he was told. "Legs apart," Grey murmured into Jo's ear, pulling the mortal close between his thighs. Jo obeyed, and Grey put his own legs over each of Jo's. He began to slowly run his hands along the boy's torso. Leaning forward a bit, he also began slowly stroking Jo's ear with his tongue, letting his breath trail into the hollows. Avoiding Jo's nipples, Grey ran his fingers under the pectorals. After a while he swept his thumbs up to the tightening nipples. 

"Not bad," Jo murmured. 

"Just you wait," Grey murmured back. He dropped his right hand down to run his fingers tenderly over the tip of Jo's glans, repeating the action until Jo began to harden. Then he slid his fingers down the shaft and over the scrotum, to tenderly stroke and press the velvety skin between it and the anus. His other hand wandered from nipple to nipple, teasing them to hardness while he nipped the boy's ear. Then he dropped that hand, too. Like before he rubbed gently along the glans, slipping his fingertip to press deeply into the hole atop it. Jo twitched, his breath coming faster as Grey established a rhythm between the touches of both hands. Grey said softly, "Touch your nipples." Shaking, the mortal obeyed, his fingers grazing and tweaking them into hard nubs. Grey shifted his legs and pulled Jo's farther apart, until the young man gave a small whimper of pain. Flicking his left fingers along the glans, Grey pressed hard for an instant with his right hand. "This is about where the entry is on a woman, Jo. She has a clitoris, as sensitive as this," he squeezed quickly with his left hand and Jo gasped, "a short distance above. With just a little encouragement, her body provides it's own oil for entry. Think of a woman's vagina as your penis inverted. When we hunger, it is as if we have an extra bone. When she hungers, it is as if she needs that bone there, to fill the inversion." 

"Oh," Jo managed to say, his breath shuddering in and out. 

Grey pulled Jo's legs farther apart, his hands moving in a rapid pattern of stroking pressure atop Jo's penis and between the boy's legs. Jo arched his back, twisting his nipples hard, pain to counter pain. Grey whispered, "Gently, lighter." The boy was trembling and his buttocks pressed back against Grey's erection. Grey managed to ignore the pressure. 

"More, use your hand, John!" Jo gasped. 

Grey chuckled and bit Jo's shoulder. "You wanted me to show you what differences I could. I will." He pulled Jo's legs even farther apart. Jo gasped and his chest heaved. Pushed to his limit he reached down and Grey caught the desperate hands. "I'll stop, Jo," he threatened. With a low groan, the boy acquiesced, moving his hands back to stroking his nipples. Grey shifted, hands changing places as he wanted to reach the left side of Jo's neck and shoulders. Jo moaned and opened himself to the touch. With his body relaxed like that, Grey finished his goal, forcing Jo's legs as far apart as they could go. He sped up his pressuring fingers and Jo whimpered, once again twisting his own nipples to the point of sweet agony. This time Grey did not stop him but increased the pressure of his fingers. 

"I need... I can't... help me," Jo whispered. With his legs at a 90 degree angle he could not push forward into the thrum of Grey's fingers and he gasped, his body jerking fitfully. 

Grey said nothing, simply opened his mouth and bit at the flesh of Jo's neck until it reddened and continued to the ear, impossibly speeding up the cadence of his fingers as Jo cried out for help. Then he felt Jo come, the hot, slick wetness spurting through his fingers. The hot scent of the boy's body and salty taste of his skin was intensely erotic. Jo groaned deep in his chest. Grey wrapped his arms around the mortal and hid his smile against Jo's back. 

It was several seconds before Jo shuddered, turning his head to stare with glazed, puzzled eyes at Grey. "I don't understand, I came, yet... why do I feel dissatisfied?" 

Grey chuckled. "It's a biological thing. Your body feels cheated. You needed something, a hand or mouth or..." 

"Or your sweet asshole surrounding me," Jo finished for him, a hint of anger in his voice. Grey grinned to himself. The boy was getting less subtle in his attempts to get Grey to take bottom. Yet Grey had no intention of doing so while he still wondered if Jo harbored a secret wish to use Grey to avenge himself on his father. The mortal asked doubtfully, "This would have satisfied a woman?" 

"No, she would feel much as you do now, because her body would need the fingers, or penis, or anything inside it." Grey frowned, his mind drawn back to the memories of how the occasional fit of fury would send him outside to stare toward the land they had found Mariah in, and toy with the idea of slaughtering the children of Saddam Ben Sur. For Mariah associated only pain with touches in such intimate places. The first time her body arched under his hands, begging for his touch, had burned away much of that guilt-ridden anger. 

"Women must be much more difficult to rape than men," Jo commented, wincing at the pain in his legs. "They can close their legs, block off that point of entry." 

Grey helped Jo loosen his legs and rubbed at the strained muscles. "Yes, they can. That's why most rapists prefer women." 

Startled, Jo half-turned. "Huh?" 

Grey raised his eyebrows. "I told you, it's a power thing. They like to force themselves on their victims, and the more they have to hurt someone to get what they want, the better. Breaking down the resistance is what they really get off on, not the sex. It's also societal. A woman has two choices when she is raped; struggle or submit. If she struggles, she is liable to be beaten at the least. If she submits, the rapist might beat or kill her, anyway. But if he does not, people will not call it rape. They will say she wanted it. A boy, though, can say he was raped though he did not fight, and they will believe him since a man is not supposed to have..." The Immortal trailed off, not certain how to express this sentence. 

Jo finished it for him. "A man fucks, he doesn't GET fucked. A woman gets fucked." 

Grey nodded and dropped his right hand again to press that tender spot between Jo's legs. "I have it on good authority that it's like someone takes a hot knife and punctures you right here." 

Jo shot to his feet away from Grey, his face green. He looked as if he would be sick. "Shit! How could anyone..!" he broke off in mid-sentence, staring at Grey. 

Grey smiled despite the lump in his throat. "At least this proves that you have no inclination to be a rapist." 

The color came back into Jo's face. He dropped to his knees in front of Grey and cupped the taller man's face firmly between his palms. Grey felt torn and naked, meeting the intent blue eyes. "Neither do you, John Grey." The Immortal found that statement ironic, and he smiled. Jo leaned closer. "The past is the past. I'll prove it to you." 

Grey raised his eyebrows, but let Jo pull him to his feet. The boy led him into the bedroom. "Now it is you who must take off your clothes, John," he said gravely. 

Grey did not make the production of it Jo had, he slipped out of his clothes and eyed the boy. Jo came close, trailing his fingers over Grey's chest. "Lie on your back; hold the bars with your hands." Grey huffed a breath and did as requested. If Jo brought out restraints, though, Grey would be away like lightning. Jo sat beside him, grinning down at him. "You'll only let me do so much, I know." There was something mysterious in his grin, a hint of hidden purpose but nothing unnerving. Jo leaned down and kissed Grey, soft and lingering. Grey relaxed as the boy's talented hands began to roam his body. 

In truth, he did not know when it happened. It seemed as though one minute he was soothed by Jo's touch, and the next his body tensed in response. Jo was down tenderly sucking him, hands a continual stroking over Grey's skin. Jo made no effort to part Grey's legs, did not reach down to press for that place so often refused him by the taller man. He simply drew Grey deep and released him, then did it again. Exquisite. Grey closed his fists harder on the bars of the headboard, a moan of appreciation escaping his throat. Just when he felt as though he would come, Jo stopped him. Through strokes and whispers Jo calmed Grey's body and then began again. 

It went on for hours. Whenever Grey lost his grip on the bars and reached convulsively for Jo, the boy allowed the touch and stroked Grey's arms until the shuddering man let go and gripped the bars again. 

Drowning in sensual pleasure, open and raw from old guilts, Grey gave in to Jo's knowledgeable touch. How long had the boy been planning this seduction, the Immortal wondered in a brief moment of clarity. He twisted, struggling for the tantalizing touch, his eyes closed and breath coming sharp enough to hurt. As he arched desperately for the talented lips he tried to bring Jo closer, wrapping his legs around the boy's broad shoulders. Suddenly slick fingers stroked into Grey's body. Grey groaned, pushing against the fingers, feeling them touch right... he moaned, trying to pull Jo even closer. 

"John," came the gentle voice that had been with him all night. This time it held a note of command and Grey opened his eyes to focus on the gleaming blue eyes above him. In some corner of his mind he noticed that dim, pre-dawn light had brightened the room a bit. "You are mine, John. Say it." 

The fingers touched him there again. He gasped, opening himself of conscious will. "I am yours." The fingers rewarded him and he shook violently, then Jo withdrew his fingers and placed instead his penis and Grey accepted it with grateful relief. Still Jo made it pure torture, entering slowly, not applying quite enough pressure, stopping and making Grey say again that he was Jo's. And finally the boy stopped being slow and gentle and took them both to the heights and over. 

Wrapped in Jo's arms, Grey concentrated on breathing, steadying his racing heart. He felt oddly whole, as if a piece of himself had been missing without his knowing. "I told you I'd prove it to you," Jo said softly. 

Grey moved his lips to question, but could force no sound from his limp vocal cords. 

Jo's laugh was light, as if he, too, had found a piece of himself. "There was no way you could have gone through this night without taking me, if you were a rapist." 

The Immortal felt dim, warm astonishment roll through him. This time he managed to get sound out. "You are confident of your abilities. Rightly so," he whispered. 

"And now I know why you could love Mariah and still be completely homosexual. It makes you feel very proprietary, to teach someone such intimate things they don't know about themselves." He tightened his hug briefly, snuggling against Grey's back. "I must sleep," he murmured softly. 

Grey smiled and reached back to stroke his lover's golden hair. He, too, was exhausted. He drifted into a peaceful, dim darkness. 

One day, Grey said, "Jo, you are circumcised." 

Jo, his head on Grey's lap, was stretched out contentedly. "Of course," he said. 

"Doesn't this present a potential problem for you?" 

Jo opened his eyes and winked at Grey. "I had a horrid infection when I was a child, and they cut my foreskin off. Perfectly normal." 

Grey whistled. "Whoever did your papers must have been very good." 

Jo rolled over and began rubbing his face firmly against Grey's lap. "Not remotely as good as you, John!" he said, affectionately 

Having vowed to stay out of it as much as possible, Grey closed his eyes to the increasing persecution of the Jews. Though the SA had some unsavory, gangster-like habits, to Grey Jo was above all that. Grey went home to work on the farm so as to increase his free time to be with Jo, who was terribly excited by the growing power of the Nazis. There was the coming winter to stock up for; the seasonal checking to make sure the grain would not get wet or moldy; the careful assessment of each horse's health... and in spring the pregnant mares would foal. Grey always loved that time. The precious miracle of a newborn foal's first stumbling steps entranced him. Thus Grey would decide later that in shuttling back and forth between home and Germany, he missed some of the developments that might have warned him of their approaching danger. 

\-----------------------------------------------

**June 20th, 1934**

When Jo picked up Grey at the airport, the young man was visibly stressed. Driving to his apartment, he explained that on the 17th, the Vice Chancellor, Franz Von Papen had made a speech denouncing Rohm and the SA for as Communists. "He was saying we will try to take over Germany, have a 'second' revolution to displace the Fuhrer!" Jo scowled. "Rohm WORSHIPS Hitler, he would never do anything to hurt him!" 

Jo had taken leave to be with Grey, and within a few days he forgot his annoyance with Von Papen. Thus he was not in Munich on June 30th, 'The Night of the Long Knives.' 

July 1st, 11 in the morning, the door of Jo's apartment was kicked in. The two men, dressed already, looked up from breakfast. "What-?" Jo exclaimed. They were dragged out to a waiting van, Grey being careful to not obviously dodge the blows aimed at him. They must have found out about Jo. He revised that assessment when they were in the van. The prisoners inside all wore SA uniforms, their faces swollen by blows and streaked with blood. When the doors slammed shut, Grey turned quickly to Jo. "Are you all right?" 

The shaking mortal wrapped his arm around Grey's waist and huddled close. It took him a second to pull himself together, and then he nodded and laid his finger across Grey's lips. Straightening up, he demanded, "What's going on?" 

"Don't let them see he's your lover!" one man whispered urgently. 

Jo frowned. "It's rather late for that." He pulled Grey close, establishing a dominant role. "What is happening?" he repeated slowly. 

The others exchanged nervous looks. Finally, one man said, "They arrested Rohm in Munich hours ago. Now they're killing our leaders and arresting the more important of us!" 

"Who?" 

"The SS! At Hitler's orders! They sent Rohm and the others to Stadeheim Prison, except for Edmund Heines. They executed him." 

"Why?!" 

"They found him in bed with a man." 

They fell silent, all digesting the news in various levels of shock. Grey berated himself. And yet he could not look back and focus on a precise moment when this could have been predicted. He had been blinded by the obvious persecution of the Jews, and missed the potential for trouble in this other direction. Times change, but so much, so fast? Grey shook himself. He was just too old to anticipate how the advances in civilization could make change happen so quickly. 

\---------------------------------------------------

**Arrival in the evening at Camp Meerschweine**

The prisoners were ordered to strip and their clothes taken away. In the camp lights, the cold wind raised goosebumps on their flesh. As guards tallied the prisoners against their lists, the camp commander shouted out the rules. In the mornings, the prisoners would gather in groups of eight on the parade ground. Their block leaders, the capos, would tell them the details. When the commander finished his speech, most of the prisoners were sent inside a building. Then the commandant began listing rules for the forty-three men who were still standing in the cold. They were not to speak or approach the other prisoners. "You are scum! Race-traitors! Shitty queers!" He strutted among the quivering men. At random he struck men in the face. One ducked and the commandant stopped. He grabbed the young man and dragged him out in front of the prisoners. Two guards came over with a wooden sawhorse, and bent the man over it on his stomach, tying him there. They began to methodically beat him. He held silent at first, but soon began screaming. The guards changed tactics, aiming brutal kicks between his legs, quickly tearing his flesh. The screams became helpless shrieks, and at that the guards desisted. 

The commandant turned to the group of horrified prisoners. He swaggered along the line of men. "Any defiance will be immediately punished. You will obey instantly or suffer! When you sleep, you do not wear underclothes. Keep your hands above your blankets!" 

While he was speaking, the guards upended a large pail of ice water over the bound man. He cried out and shook. The commandant gave a satisfied nod, and the other prisoners were directed into the nearby building. There they were shaved bald; the barbers indifferent to tearing flesh and many came out bleeding. Each man was issued a small bundle of clothing and allowed to dress. The clothes were handed out with blatant disregard to whether or not they fit, and Grey was in a set much too small for him, Jo's barely fit. They were all directed into the homosexuals' block, and there Jo and Grey found pallets next to each other. The Capos, the criminal prisoners in charge of the block, ordered them all quiet and doused the lights. In the darkness, Grey reached over and clasped Jo's hand. Steady as Jo managed to appear, his fear communicated itself to Grey. The Immortal sought to impart strength with his touch and, despite everything, they drifted off to sleep. 

In the morning they were allowed a half-hour to wash, dress, make their beds and eat. The meal was a piece of bread and thin, flour soup. The new prisoners all moved like sleepwalkers, too confused to try to control their situation. Then all the prisoners were rushed out onto the parade ground. There was a murmur of shock through the new men. Their capos quickly kicked them into place. The young man who had been beaten the night before was still there on the sawhorse; his body locked in position. A few of the new prisoners were ordered to untie the body and dump it beside their block of eight to be counted. A glance around showed one or two other dead laid out next to the small groups. 

The counting took about an hour, and then they were separated into work groups. The newly arrived homosexual prisoners were taken to piles of dirt, sand and rocks. The guards gave instructions. They were to move the piles to the opposite side of the road, using their thin jackets to carry each load. They were allowed to work in pairs. One young man asked where the shovels were. The guard who answered sneered at him. "You think we waste good tools on you bum-fuckers? You move it with your hands!" 

Grey was puzzled. Conquerors almost always enslaved the conquered, but this seemed pointless. The guards shouted at the prisoners to hurry, and they tried to run with their loads. Around mid-day, the exhausted, hot men were allowed a half-hour rest break. Grey had settled into a routine, getting his hands as dirty as possible to hide the fact that he had no visible cuts or bruises. With Grey's staunch, steady support Jo was able to match the pace demanded by the guards. Some of the other prisoners, though, were looking very bad. Then, to their surprise, after the break they were ordered to move everything back to the same place they had started from. Soon, though, one of the men working near Grey and Jo collapsed, weeping. 

The guards descended upon him like vultures, kicking him to his feet. They forced him back to work, and one hovered nearby as he stumbled back and forth with his terrified partner. Grey carefully tried to help Jo establish a steady routine that would keep him from collapsing in exhaustion. The Immortal had years of experience in steady manual labor, though never anything quite like this. That night, they all collapsed onto their small cots and fell into deep, exhausted sleep. 

This went on for eight days, until a new group of homosexual prisoners arrived and was set on this job. By that time Grey and Jo's group had already lost four more men to death, and the remaining survivors had settled into a routine of mindless, steady work, obeying without thought the orders from their guards and the Capos. The capos for the homosexuals were chosen from the criminal population, largely because the commandant did not want a homosexual in charge. Though the men were not homosexual, they took those whom they fancied from among their prisoners to satisfy their needs. When Grey saw some of the men eyeing Jo, he was not sure what to do. The men who accepted were treated somewhat better than the other prisoners. Jo, however, stayed close to Grey and avoided the gazes of those capos. 

On August 2nd, 1934, the German President von Hindenburg died. Hitler became Fuhrer of Germany. They knew because the Commandant announced it smugly at the morning parade. Grey and Jo could get time to talk by carefully fitting in moments throughout the days, but usually they would just lean on each other and enjoy those few minutes of peace. Grey tried to bolster Jo's flagging spirits and ignore the fact that he, too, was losing his faith that this would pass soon. He took what advantage he could, befuddling the guards so that two tall men did not attract the attention they could have. The nail that stands out - in any way - is hammered down. This was not like any kind of enslavement Grey had ever either suffered or simply witnessed. 

As the years passed, the prisoners were taken, sometimes by train or on occasion marched for a few weeks, to build other camps and do other manual labor. The faces of the prisoners changed overall. The number of criminals increasing, but also a percentage of people whose reason for being there was less obvious. The Gypsy tribes, the Sinti and Roma, and other ethnic groups increased in size at Meerschweine. Jehovah's Witnesses also came in a slow, steady trickle. Other things, however, stayed the same or went from bad to worse. These were the painfully inadequate food, shelter and lack of medical care. The guards took a kind of sadistic joy in their prisoners' sufferings. Grey retreated in confusion. Just who would the Nazis use for servants when they killed off all of their minorities? Even slaughter was quicker than this. This made no sense. None at all. 

News filtered in slowly as the years passed. One day the commandant announced, "On September 15th, 1935, these laws were passed: Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of Germany or related blood are forbidden. They can be annulled by the State Prosecutor! There will be no extramarital intercourse between Jews and the subject of Germany. Jews may not employ in their households German women under the age of forty-five! Nor may they fly the Reich or National Flag, or display Reich colors! Violation of these laws means prison sentence and hard labor!" Smiling, the commandant looked down at his prisoners. "Expect the numbers of Jews in the camp to increase dramatically!" 

They did. The Jews came in an almost steady stream; frightened men who had been torn from their families. They were quickly disciplined into place. Like the other prisoners they kept far away from the homosexuals and eyed them nervously. The camp began to look more populated than it had before, and many prisoners were put to work building new blocks to house the increasing number of prisoners. 

Still, little happened to break the monotony. In August of 1936, the commandant announced that a new government division had been created: The Office For Combating Homosexuality and Abortions. "By healthy women, of course," he added. The trickle of incoming prisoners soon included more homosexuals; often young men who were immediately parceled out by the Capos. The uncooperative were quickly weeded out. If they survived, they soon began to look as ill and exhausted as the other men. 

In March of 1938, the guards began bragging that Hitler had forced Austria into a union. They were disgruntled, however, because the SS had been put in authority over the important duty of the fate of the Jews in Austria. In the future, the guards at all concentration camps would all be replaced by SS men, but at present they still were, in essence, regular guards. 

Then in mid-November, at evening role-call, the commandant stepped up to his podium. As he spoke, he waved the papers in his hands at his prisoners. He was outraged. "We lawfully expelled all Polish Jews back to Poland on October 28th! Poland refused their own citizens entry and we were forced to intern seventeen thousand Jews on the border between Poland and Germany! Then the Third Secretary, Ernst vom Rath, was assassinated in France in a conspiracy by the International Jewry! In revenge, our young people rioted on November 9th and 10th, wreaking mass-destruction throughout neighborhoods. I am happy to report the destruction of one-hundred and one synagogues and over seven thousand Jewish businesses!! Twenty-six thousand Jews have been arrested and are en route to various camps. Some will be sent here. We have fined the Jews one billion marks for the murder of vom Rath. The marks paid out by German insurance companies for damages to Jewish businesses are meant for the state. We are taking all measures to eliminate the Jews from the German economy, so that they cannot disrupt us when they cause such riots!" 

He slammed the papers down and glared fiercely toward the knots of Jewish prisoners. "We call that riot 'Kristallnacht', because much of the damage done was to glass. We have had to pay precious marks for replacement glass. We have to import glass from Belgium! I tell you, NO synagogues will be rebuilt! Your people have NO place in Germany!" 

\-----------------------------------------

That night, Grey woke to the sound of Jo's quiet sobs. He reached out, stroking the tear-stained cheeks. "Shh, Jo, be still." 

Jo pushed Grey's hand away with violent anguish. "I'm Jewish, Grey." 

"I know, love." 

"I'm going to tell them." 

Grey flipped over to face Jo, staring at the dim form. "No, don't tell them! Do you want to suffer what they'll do to a Jewish homosexual?!" 

Jo was silent for a moment. "The torments of Hell. Yes, I do. I deserve it." 

"No one deserves it!" Grey drew a breath to continue, but Jo spoke again. 

"I delivered my people into Hell. It's only right I should join them there." 

"Jo..." 

Jo's quiet whisper over-rode Grey's protest. "I heard every word Hitler uttered. I read his damned book. I knew everything the SA was doing! This is MY FAULT!" 

Prisoners in the nearby beds stirred and muttered in unconscious protest to the noises that were disturbing their sleep. 

Grey hissed back, "You didn't believe the SCALE on which it would occur!" 

Jo raised his head and looked thoughtfully at Grey. He said gently, "I did. But you didn't." Grey felt as though he had been struck. Jo continued, "I thought it wouldn't touch me. I placed myself close to a man of power. If we weren't here, I would probably still be in the Nazi party helping bring my people - both of my peoples - to Hell." He leaned toward Grey and said firmly, "I do deserve this." 

"Then so do I," Grey choked out. 

Jo reached over and stroked his finger along the sharply defined bones of Grey's face. "No, you don't. You may not be a Good Samaritan, stopping to help a stranger, but it is I who am King Herod, butchering babies... butcher..." Jo trailed off, his eyes losing focus. 

"Jo, this will pass if only we live through it!" 

Jo did not answer. He stroked Grey's face absently through the night.

\-------------------------------------------

**Part 3: Holocaust**

> Lord is it Mine
> 
> __I know that there's a reason why I need to be alone  
>  To show me there's a silent place that I can call my own  
>  Is it mine, Oh Lord, is it mine?
> 
> You know I get so weary from the battles in this life  
>  and there's many times it seems that you're the only hope in sight  
>  Is it mine, Oh Lord, is it mine? 
> 
> When everything's dark and nothing seems right  
>  There's nothing to win and there's no need to fight
> 
> I never cease to wonder at the cruelty of this land  
>  but it seems a time of sadness is a time to understand  
>  Is it mine, Oh Lord, is it mine?
> 
> When everything's dark and nothing seems right,  
>  You don't have to win and there's no need to fight
> 
> If only I could find a way to feel your sweetness through the day  
>  The love that shines around me could be mine.  
>  So give us an answer, won't you,  
>  We know what we have to do,  
>  There must be a thousand voices trying to get through. 
> 
> by Supertramp 

\-------------------------------------------

**Mid-November, 1938**

Jo disappeared shortly after the prisoners were rousted from bed. Grey cursed in his thoughts, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop the boy. Jo could no longer live in Grey's protective shadow, sheltered by the Immortal's carefully woven cloak of anonymity. Don't do it, don't do it, Grey thought. His heart sank as they assembled on the parade ground, the biting November wind cutting through their thin clothes. 

Jo was tied naked on the sawhorse. As yet he was unbruised, but his thinness and shivering was visible even from a distance. Instead of the usual morning harangue, the commandant sneered. "We have here a bumfucker who is also a Judah! Murderer of Christ! This filth should never have been born! He is worthless both for breeding and to the German nation!" Panting with anger, the commandant ordered his men to begin the whipping. 

Jo made no sound at first, and that infuriated the commandant. Grey winced at the awful noise of the skin tearing on Jo's back. Moments later, when a single, keening wail broke from Jo's throat, Grey sprang forward. He dove around the guards and threw himself between the lash and Jo. It seemed as though the entire world came to a halt, so still did the air become. Grey huddled protectively over Jo's body, burying his face in his arms. He ignored everything around him, concentrating instead on Jo's breathing, the tiny noises that meant he was still alive. 

The guards seized Grey and wrenched him around to face the commandant. Grey felt his flesh crawl as the cold, dead-eyed man looked him up and down. He concentrated, trying to focus the man on himself so strongly that Jo would be forgotten. Perhaps it was working, the icy blue eyes bore into Grey's. The commandant said calmly, "Send the Jew with his work detail. Take THIS one to the Ropes." The guards untied Jo and shoved the young man towards the other homosexual prisoners. Then they took Grey away. 

The Ropes. Grey shook with relief. The guards thought he was terrified and laughed evilly. This was a punishment that left few visible injuries, and many mortals survived it. He could fake the aftereffects. He was the first prisoner to be brought there that day. The scaffoldings loomed above him. He pretended at mindless terror and shrank back into the guards' grip. They wrenched his arms back behind him and expertly tied his wrists together. Then they passed the hook underneath Grey's wrists and began to wind the rope tight. 

The first jerk sent a shock of pain through Grey's shoulders. Then, as his feet left the ground, agony flared. He knew what was happening; his bones were being wrenched from their natural place. Knowing did not ease the pain. With each pull bringing him higher it pulsed sharply. In part to make the guards happy as well as because of the pain, Grey screamed. He could endure this and he would only have to stay conscious of it for a little while to satisfy the guards with his cries. His weight pulled him down, both shoulders on fire. He allowed it until it began to cloud his mind, then he suspended his thoughts and drifted. There was a dim, quiet place in his mind, where he was aware of the agony in the way a person in a lighthouse is aware of the weather outside; the crash of the waves and the whistle of the wind. In this timeless state he retreated into memory. 

\-----------------------------------------

**Late September, 1933**

They were storing the hay for winter, he and Dige together heaving the bundles onto a pulley for Mariah and Tran to bring up to the loft and transfer to the growing pile. "You know, we could automate this process, like Ford did his automobile plant," Dige said breathlessly as they turned to gather up the next bundle of hay. 

"You must be joking. The smell, the noise, I don't like it." 

Dige rolled his eyes. "The machines will get better. Automating this would free us to do more work on other things!" 

"Like what?" Genuinely non-plussed, Grey met Dige's expression of fond exasperation. 

"Well, if we do it, we'll find out!" Dige nudged Grey affectionately, "You never objected to Mariah's plane." 

Mariah called down, laughingly, "That's because he doesn't have to deal with my plane except when he wants me to fly him somewhere." 

"I like flying!" Grey called back. "I just don't like the noise and the fumes!" Two voices burst into laughter from the loft above them. 

Tran leaned over and looked down at Grey. "He does have a point. If we could finish this quickly, you could go back to your Jo now, THEN come back just before winter instead of waiting until after spring." 

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Grey replied with dignity. 

Again there was a flurry of laughter from above, and Dige beside him was trying desperately not to laugh aloud. After a moment, Dige said innocently, "When are you going to bring him home, anyway?" 

Grey nudged him and they began loading the hay again. "Like always, I'll bring him when I've explained about Immortality, and I think he can handle growing old with us around him." 

Dige shook his head. "You always wait too long to do that. Usually you bring us older men, who can only help for a couple of decades before they get too weak. Now, this Jo could be useful for at least half a century!" 

"Oh, yes. I can just imagine it. 'Here, Jo, I trusted you with all this because my friend is lazy, and wants cheap labor.' I think NOT!" 

Dige raised his eyebrows, then he hooked Grey's legs and sent him tumbling into the strewn hay. "Lazy, am I?" he shouted, pouncing happily on Grey. 

"Oh, no you don't!" Grey shouted back as Dige tried to pin him. They tussled enthusiastically until Grey had Dige pinned, but the downed man was grinning. Suddenly, fingers slid under Grey's shirt and he yelped, wriggling frantically as Mariah tickled him. "No fair! Two against one!" 

"Three!" Tran said in his ear. 

Dige heaved and sent Grey over his head. The silver haired Immortal landed on his back with a resounding thud. Pinning Grey's hands, Dige kept the other man down while their cohorts mercilessly tickled him. 

"Stop! Stop! You're killing me!" Grey gasped dramatically in the brief moments when he could catch his breath. 

They finally did stop. Mariah lay across his chest, her chin on her hand, looking solemnly into his eyes. "All the same, please don't take too long," she said. 

His hands still pinned by Dige, Grey had to tilt his head awkwardly to look at her. "Why?" 

"You should have seen the way those people looked at me. You are from the same general racial group, so they probably didn't care about you. But we encountered a great deal of hostility. Your Jo being Jewish, you may want to get him out of there, and quickly." 

"His identity is pretty secure," Grey replied. He nodded, though. Jo might be exposed somehow; perhaps by a family member identifying him. 

Tran poked his head over Mariah's shoulders and stared seriously down at Grey. "Promise, if you see any sign of trouble, you'll get out of there. Without Jo, if that's what it takes." 

"Of course," Grey replied. 

\------------------------------------

**The Ropes**

Grey pulled himself muzzily away from this memory. Promises are easy to make when you don't know what the circumstances will be. I can't leave him alone in this. He's a good man. Tran, don't be angry with me, he thought. 

{Grey?} He seemed to hear Tran's voice, distorted and hollow with distance; desperate. 

"Here," he answered. Something changed, the numb world he was in rippled and shuddered. He came out of it as he registered that he was being moved. 

His feet touched the ground and he fell forward. His arms were pulled up and he groaned at the return of that pain to his shrieking muscles. He was dimly conscious of something touching his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. Then pain of a wholly different kind blazed through his being. Hot, burning, ripping agony that tore into him from behind. Terror woke in his breast. Oh gods, I'll die and revive and they'll find out I'm Immortal! Then something softer and hairy hit his buttocks and he bit his tongue to turn his relieved laugh into a cry of pain. Just before he passed out he thought, Mariah, you were exactly right. 

He was taken to the parade ground and stood, weaving, through the evening role-call. Jo, still wearing the blood-caked shirt that he had been given after the beating, tried to unobtrusively help Grey stand. The Immortal looked apologetically into Jo's eyes, but the young mortal did not look angry, only exasperated and anguished. Grey was reminded faintly of Dige. He suddenly looked in surprise at the badge Jo wore. It was a big, pink triangle with the long end pointing down. Vaguely Grey thought it reminded him of the ... Greek, wasn't it?... symbol for vulva. He realized suddenly that he wore one, too, had worn it for some time now and been indifferent to the fact. What attracted Grey's attention was that Jo's was now superimposed over a smaller, yellow triangle. Oh, of course, he thought. The two triangles formed the Jewish Star of David, and all Jews wore a yellow one. Grey chuckled. 

"Still, love," Jo whispered. 

Grey forcibly reined in his hysteria and closed his eyes. Though his knees buckled several times through the roll, when it was over he was able to make it to the block largely under his own power. Though weak from healing and malnutrition, he could not be other than what he was. 

Someone helped Jo put him to bed. "He's delirious," that person muttered. "You KNOW what will happen to him if he's too weak to work tomorrow." 

"He's going to be fine, you'll see," Jo replied. "Thank you." 

Grey could not make out the response, but the other man sounded uncomfortable. Then the man was gone, and Jo was with him, allowing him to play with long, calloused fingers. Everything around them seemed limned in a faint, rainbow glow. He grasped at Jo's fingers, marveling at the simple fact of the mortal's life. "I saved you." 

"The things you do to impress me," Jo whispered affectionately. "Maybe there's something to that Nazi slogan, 'Freedom through hard work', I was furious with you! But you're right, love. Punishing myself won't change things." 

"... didn't want to attract attention..." Grey murmured, sinking into darkness. 

"Rest, John." 

Grey closed his eyes, his flesh still protesting remembered pain. He had been hung for almost eleven hours. Tomorrow he would have to pretend to still be suffering from the effects, but that was easy. He had seen enough victims to know how to behave. As he slipped into sleep, he also remembered that those same prisoners, when the bored guards amused themselves by firing on the workers, usually just stood there and let themselves get hit. People had been hit more often, lately, had they not? Or was it just that there were so many more wan, exhausted prisoners? 

That incident pulled Grey out of his cocoon. For years now he had been numb as he used his Quickening to encourage a sort of blindness in the guards. Now, Jo stood out and Grey could only stand out with him. 

The next day, the guards separated Grey from his usual group and sent him into the commandant's office. Grey shrank into himself when the man looked at him. Yes, he had read the man exactly right. This one simply loved to watch men cower, and Grey gave him what he wanted, nearly falling in terror when the man approached him. Apparently this was enough, for now, for whatever demon was inside the commandant. The man exuded satisfaction. He nodded to the guards and they took Grey out. It was clear they had their orders. Grey was taken to the kitchens and put to work scrubbing pots and pans, cleaning the floors and any other odd job the cooks could find to put an unwanted homosexual to work on. He did the best he could, even with the occasional feigned collapse to simulate the effects of the day before. The cooks, who were also prisoners, found pity for him in their hearts and eased his workload. After a few days of this, Grey was "recovered" enough to return to his regular work detail. It occurred to him that he might want to pray that the commandant would lose interest in him before he had to deal with anything more horrifying than feigning terror every time the man looked at him. 

When a particularly new prisoner was being treated with even more cruel torment than usual, Grey asked what was going on. Jo's answer surprised him. The man was an SS man who had been exposed as a homosexual. Since early 1937, Heinrich Himmler had ordered that any homosexuals caught in the SS were to be sent to a concentration camp to be shot attempting escape. The prisoner knew this, and tried desperately not to catch the guards' attention, but it was hopeless as they knew who he was. Though what they did to him was really no more cruel than what they did to other homosexual prisoners, it was done in a more concentrated manner. The former SS-man came back from more beatings; was soaked in cold water, then forced to stand outside for hours in the freezing night far more often than other prisoners. Soon he was in far worse condition than most of them. Then one day, as he staggered away from the parade ground, three SS men jumped him. They slammed a tin pail over his head and began beating on it, spinning him in circles. When they finished, they took the pail off and kicked the reeling man toward the fences. The other prisoners held their breaths in collective agony, not daring to attract attention, as he stumbled into the no-man's-land close to the fence. The man's torture finally ended in a hail of bullets as the SS men laughed. 

Grey turned away, sickened, and returned to the block with Jo. 

On March 15th and 16th, 1939, the Nazis took Czechoslavakia. Then in May a ship, the St. Louis, carrying nine-hundred and thirty Jewish refugees fled Europe. Cuba, the United States and other countries refused to let it dock and it was forced to return to Europe. The camp commandant laughed as he gloated to his Jewish prisoners: "No one wants you! Poor little Christ-killers!" On September 1st, the Nazis took Poland. It was only a couple of days later that England and France finally declared war on Germany. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, continued to fight. The city finally surrendered on September 27th. The Nazis were annoyed, though, because they had to split Poland with the Soviets. It was in January of 1940 that the commandant read to his quaking prisoners from a newspaper; "The time is near when a machine will go into motion which is going to prepare a grave for the world's criminal - Judah - from which there will be no resurrection." 

After his work shift, for the first time in many months, Grey was called before the commandant. He stared at the man in abject terror. The commandant stood and approached him with swift steps. Unable to retreat because of the guards, Grey cringed back and finally fell to his knees, his eyes as wide as saucers fixed on the dangerous man. The commandant waved the guards out. He stared down at Grey with bemused interest. 

"You are a survivor. A model prisoner, your capo tells me. The only reason you are here is because you were picked up with that bum-fucker from the SS, who somehow hid that he was Judah." The commandant raked Grey with his eyes. "There is really no reason for you to be here." 

Grey was not certain where the man was headed. Some prisoners had been released, but never homosexuals nor Jews. 

"There will be no Polish Jews here, we are constructing death-camps in Poland. Your German is perfect, I'm told. Do you know what 'Meershweine' means?" 

Grey shook his head, numbly. 

The commandant knelt, his eyes boring into Grey's. "It means guinea pig. Experimental animal." He poked his finger brutally into Grey's sturnum. "That means you, and the Judahs. We may as well get some use out of you before you die." Grey scrambled away until his back hit the wall. The commandant followed, coming in close, his breath hot on Grey's face. "Nothing stirred you, until your boy was endangered. Think about this: he is doomed. And there is nothing you can do to save him." 

Grey gasped. The agony in his chest had nothing to do with the hard finger pressing into his flesh. When his tears escaped, he almost could not see the satisfied smile that spread across the commandant's face. The man stood up and called the guards back in. Grey was returned to his block. He had missed dinner, but he had no appetite. He lay limply on his bed and stretched one hand out to rest upon Jo's shoulder. Jo laid his own hand over it and squeezed. From then on, Grey always kept his hand touching the mortal as they slept. He was unable to deal with an irrational fear that Jo would disappear in the night. 

In the morning, Grey could not eat. He gave his food to Jo, and when the boy refused, gave it to the other man who had taken to sitting with them. A Catholic priest and a homosexual, this was the man who had helped Jo with Grey those many months before. "Is something troubling you, my son?" he asked kindly. 

Grey managed a wan smile and a smart retort. "What could possibly be troubling me, Father?" 

As they worked that day, Jo tried to take most of the load off of Grey. The Immortal, marveling at the light and spirit in Jo's eyes, began to perk up. Seeing that, the young mortal began whispering a string of dirty jokes as they loaded rocks onto a cart. Containing his laughter, Grey suddenly felt a cold prickle down his spine. He looked up and saw the commandant on the lip of the pit, watching him. The man smiled icily. He shifted his gaze to Jo and simply stared at the young man. Grey closed his eyes, but could not shut out the crippling pain in his heart. This is just psychological, he thought. He's enjoying himself hurting you. The thought brought no comfort in the face of Jo's vulnerability. As long as I have my head, there's hope for me. But Jo... 

He could summon up no interest in eating the evening meal. Jo talked to him as they settled onto their cots. "The Nazis are gathering Jews in ghettos near railroads. Obviously, they're going to move them to concentration camps. The capos say a new camp is being built in Oswiecim, Poland." 

Grey looked down at his feet. "Jo, there are so many Jews. They can't intern them all." 

Jo took Grey's chin gently in his hands and made the older man look at him. "I've known all along. Father Braun says the Nazis began euthanizing the sick and disabled in October. It's only a matter of time before they start actively on the Jews. Don't think about it, John. If it's inevitable, it is." 

Grey leaned against Jo and pressed his face into the young man's shoulder. 

Words lost their meaning. He could not eat breakfast, either. Sometimes the commandant would appear and stare at him, or just at Jo. This went on for days. Soon, Grey became so listless that Jo had to yank him down every time the guards started firing randomly at prisoners. 

Father Braun sat next to Grey one evening. "Joseph wants me to take your confession," the man sounded gently amused. "He says you are not Catholic, nor in fact, does he believe you follow any religion. But I agree with him. You must speak to someone and you are too close to Joseph." 

Confused for a moment, Grey realized that Jo - Joseph - had gone back to using his full given name. "There's nothing I can talk about, Father. You wouldn't understand." 

"Give me a chance, lad." 

Grey sighed. If he gave the Father something, perhaps the man would go away. "I thought that someone would stop this. Someone would see what was happening and object. But they haven't. The St. Louis was turned away with all its refugees. I suppose... I can understand the lack of concern with people like us, whom they consider criminals, but the others..." He fell silent for a long moment, then finally added, "I didn't think it would still be going on." 

"Lad," the priest, too, seemed to have difficulty groping for words. "This is not what is bothering you," he finally said. He looked at Grey with faint reproof in his eyes. "What is it that is truly hurting you?" 

Grey shook himself and looked away, anywhere but at this honest man. What would it cost him to answer? He clenched his fist around the sick, empty pain in his stomach. His body desired food and replenishment even when his soul wanted none. Blinking, he said softly, "Joseph and I are the only ones left from the group of homosexuals who we arrived here with." He finally stretched his hand out to the rough edge of his bed. He glanced around to make sure no one looked directly at him, then brutally scraped his palm. Only those closest reacted to the sound, and then only to glance toward him in surprise. He bared his teeth at them, and they nervously looked away. The priest, though, took Grey's hand between his palms in concern. Then he stared in utter astonishment as the flesh closed, leaving behind only a film of blood. Grey met his eyes, hopelessly. "I'm not your Christ. I cannot share this. If Joseph is injured or ill, he gets weaker. I just heal. And there's only one kind of death that can kill me." 

Father Braun stared in astonishment at Grey. "Lad," he began hesitantly. 

"The commandant gloats to me, he threatens Jo with his eyes and laughs at my pain. But he is right. There is NOTHING I can do! And there is no way in Heaven or on Earth that I will tell Jo about this!" 

The Father glanced uncertainly into Grey's eyes. "You mean your ability to heal yourself, yes?" Grey nodded. "Our commandant does not know about it, yes?" Grey nodded again. The priest took a breath. "Quite understandable. But you must tell Joseph how the commandant is tormenting you." 

"Must I?" Grey asked, wanly. 

"I think so." 

Grey told Jo that night, his normally quiet voice barely a whisper. Jo cursed and slipped from his cot to sit beside Grey. With the danger of a bored capo wandering by, the young mortal limited himself to kisses and reassuring stroking until Grey finally drifted to sleep, his fingers twined in Jo's. 

The next evening, after Grey sat spiritlessly through the meal, he went as usual to sit limply on his cot. Warmth settled beside him. He turned his head and looked into a face as drawn and exhausted as his was. "Joseph," he greeted the younger man, honoring the mortal's preference. 

Joseph smiled, despite everything. Then he clasped Grey's wrist in a firm grip, turning the hand over. He placed a hunk of bread in it. "Eat," he commanded. 

Grey stared listlessly at the bread. "I'm not hungry." Joseph shrugged and kept his grip on Grey's wrist. Staring at the bread, the Immortal wondered where it came from. There had been none left after they ate. He looked questioningly into Joseph's eyes. 

The mortal did not even bother to pretend he did not understand. "One of the capo gave it to me. I pleased him." He said it matter-of-factly, as if it were of no consequence. 

"Don't..!" Grey gasped out, his throat tight. "Don't do this for me!" 

"Then you eat." Joseph pulled Grey close to him and gazed him intensely in the eye. "I love you. It's my fault you're in this mess, they wouldn't have picked you up if you weren't with me. And the commandant wouldn't be able to torture you." He kissed Grey, quickly and fiercely. Drawing back again, the crystalline eyes intent, he said, "It was you who told me, this will pass if we only live through it. Now I'm telling you." 

Later, Father Braun joined them. "As you know, I was brought here recently," he began. They both looked at him, waiting to see what he had to say. "You said that no one cares about the Jews, or about those like us. And you are at least half-right. There is, however, a group in our own Germany, the White Rose. Kurt Huber was a philosophy professor who opposed the Nazis, and he was a leader of that group. Two of his proteges were Hans and Sophie Scholl. The White Rose publicly opposes the Nazis. They say 'We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace.' And they do not." 

Grey frowned. "Those three people are dead, aren't they?" 

"The Scholls were executed. I am not certain what happened to Professor Huber, he may still be alive. But the movement is certainly alive, and still objecting. There is also the Pastor's Emergency League. Its founder, Martin Niemoller, is in Dachau. He has been there since 1934, when Hitler arrested hundreds of members of the Confessional Church. Though the Catholic Church, MY church, signed a concordat recognizing the legitimacy of the Third Reich, not everyone supported it. There is hope, John Grey." The priest left them, then. 

Over time, the commandant lost interest in tormenting Grey. Events in the world were churning. On April 9th, 1940, the Nazis invaded Denmark and Norway. Only a month later they invaded France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. 

Grey heard the announcement and simply placed it in the hollow of his heart. "So much for France declaring war on Germany," he muttered. 

In August, the commandant was practically hooting with laughter as he told his prisoners, "Romania has introduced anti-Jewish laws and is cutting the Jews out of their economy. I think they're trying to placate the Fuhrer!" He was still laughing on October 7th, when the Nazis invaded Romania. In November, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia officially became Nazi allies. 

In March, 1942, they learned that Hitler had authorized the execution of anyone suspected of being a Communist in territories he planned to seize from the Soviets. The prisoners no longer harbored any thought that this was wishful thinking on Hitler's part. On March 2nd, the Nazis occupied Bulgaria. On April 6th, they invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. And on June 22nd, they went into the Soviet Union. 

Other rumors fed into the camp. Jews being slaughtered by the thousands in all occupied lands. By September, 1941, two camps in Poland, Auschwitz and Majdanek, were being used to exterminate Jews. Jewish prisoners began arriving by the truckloads, being deloused and having their belongings taken away. Within a week, the Jewish population doubled. The food, already spare, was even more thinly distributed. The Jews, however, were barely fed at all. The whole camp population held its breath, wondering what would happen and who, besides the Jews, would suffer. 

On September 17th, the Nazis took Kiev. In the cities behind their advance, the SS Einsatzgruppen murder squads slaughtered Jews. Twenty-three thousand at Kamenets-Podolsk, in the Ukraine (Grey shuddered, but knew that was far from the farm), and thirty-three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-one at Babi Yar near Kiev. The sheer number of people murdered was staggering, but the prisoners had seen enough in their time at Meerschweine that they could not disbelieve their ears. 

In December, though, the rumors flitting into the camp came alive with surprise. The Japanese had attacked the United States of America, and the U.S. and Britain declared war on the brash little nation. That astonishing rumor was soon confirmed by the commandant, who seemed almost as though he could not quite decide what he thought about it, himself. On December 11th, Hitler declared war on the U.S., and the U.S. President, the second Roosevelt, declared war on Germany in return. 

The arrival of new Jewish prisoners in the middle of the month brought men who were already so cowed with fear, the guards did not even bother to terrorize them. They brought with them information too dark to be a rumor. The Nazis were using mobile gas vans, pumping carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust into the sealed rear compartments of the vehicles. Jews and five-thousand Gypsies were among the first prisoners to be slaughtered that way, at the Chelmno extermination camp in Poland. 

Father Braun whispered to Joseph and Grey that there were other rumors, ones of hope. It seemed that the SS had been unable to take almost any Jews from Denmark. The population of Denmark had mobilized to evacuate its Jewish citizens out from under the Nazi's noses. In France, a group called the Cimade were ferrying people into Switzerland. There were Jews fresh from Berlin, who had been hidden by upstanding German citizens. The priest was certain others were still safely hidden. Poland, too, had citizens risking their lives to safeguard the endangered. There were rumors about rescues conducted under the codename "The Teheran Operation", and the Assisi Underground rescuing people in Italy. Most interesting, to the priest, was the rumor of the Japanese dimplomat and his wife who wrote visas for every frightened refugee who came to them for help. 

Even these rumors did not help later in 1942. The Nazis began experimenting on their prisoners. First there were the sterilization experiments, conducted largely on the Jews. They began in mid-July. Then in August, other experiments began. Though most of the scientists conducting experiments were based at Dachau, the commandant of Meerschweine invited his superiors to use his camp, too. 

The scientists who came to Meerschweine were cold, indifferent men. Their only interest was in the results of their tests. They had a low-pressure chamber to learn the limits of human tolerance to existence at high-altitudes. These experiments inevitably ended in death, after which they autopsied the bodies, taking them apart. There were experiments to determine treatments for people who had been severely chilled or frozen. Many people died, and many others would like to have died. Other prisoners not used in these tests woke to the screams in the night, of men who were put naked outside in the sub-zero winter winds. Malaria and Spotted Fever were other concerns, and many Jews and other prisoners died or were permanently disabled in order to test possible cures for the diseases. 

Though Jews and homosexuals were automatically chosen for these experiments, other prisoners would be used, sometimes as punishment for infractions. The older prisoners were already experts at staying out of trouble. Newer prisoners however, came back, maimed from operations. Wounds were inflicted and then permitted, and sometimes encouraged, to fester in order to test treatments. Lost gas - also known as Mustard gas - was used to infect some wounds for the same reason. 

The rumors still came. It was said that two-thousand Jews were slaughtered a day in the Treblinka camp in Poland alone. The commandant announced that the German army began its attack on Stalingrad on August 23rd. In October, the prisoners heard that all Jews in Germany were to be processed over time from their present concentration camps to Auschwitz and Majdenek. By the end of the month, the Jewish population at Meerschweine was cut by a third as the Nazis shipped out prisoners. On October 22nd, the SS put down a revolt by Jews at Sachsenhausen camp who were about to be sent to Auschwitz. Despite the rumors and the attrition of Jews out of Meerschweiene, Joseph did not seem to fall back into the black depression that had turned him suicidal years before. Then, in December, the commandant announced that the Belzec camp had been closed after ridding the Reich of approximately six hundred thousand Jews. 

It took a few days before Joseph's quiet cough became frequent and violent enough to attract his companions' attention. Grey, Father Braun and Joseph's capo lover tried to treat his symptoms as best they could, but the cough developed into pneumonia and he lay shaking and shivering on his bed. At last, the head capo noticed and sent the young man to the infirmary. 

Returning from work detail, Grey was waylaid by the capo. The bony man shoved him around the corner of the building. "I'm giving Joseph time to talk to you alone. If you get me in trouble from this, you're a dead man." He shoved Grey down and pointed at the crawl-space under the building. Grey did not dare to ask, but slipped into the dark, dusty confined space. 

The dim light filtering under the building colored the area dull gray. Grey found Joseph sitting in a hollow. "You shouldn't be under here, you'll only make yourself worse," he whispered. 

Joseph looked at him and he flinched. Surely it was only the lighting that made his mortal lover look so like a skeleton, his eyes sunk in deep pits. Joseph took Grey's hand and pulled the Immortal close, not even the pneumonia changing his domineering ways. This close the darkness was less pronounced. Joseph stroked Grey's face with his other hand, smiling sadly. "I'm not going to live through it." 

Grey blinked. He drew a shaky breath. "You can make it, Joseph. You're strong-" 

"No, not anymore." Joseph gave himself the lie by taking Grey's head firmly between his hands. "I am dying. Not from the pneumonia. They are killing me. Not quickly, no. When I went in for treatment they made me inhale a gas. I think I nearly died. Then when they revived me they made me answer questions about how it felt." He pulled Grey's lips to his and took them. His mouth tasted of ashes but the feelings soon overwhelmed the taste. And the feelings spoke of 'goodbye'. Grey was shaking when they drew apart. Joseph was not. He clearly had made a decision and Grey felt himself afraid, personally afraid for the first time. Joseph smiled at him again, this time a strange, otherworldly smile. "I used to fantasize about dying in orgasm," he began. 

"No!" Grey gasped. He jerked back but found himself held in a grip almost supernaturally strong. 

"Kill me. Make love to me and kill me. I want to die in pleasure, not in despair and pain. I don't want to be crying for mercy as I die, I've seen too many people go that way, here." 

Grey tried to take control of the conversation. "You can make it through this-" 

"I'm not like you, John." 

Stricken silent, Grey could only stare into the amused eyes. After a moment he asked, "What do you mean?" 

Rather than answer verbally, Joseph snatched Grey's hand to his mouth. In a quick motion he bit into Grey's flesh and blood welled up. Before Grey could even think, Joseph closed his eyes and licked the wound with long, slow strokes of his tongue. If the situation were not so bizarre, Grey might have enjoyed the tingling sensation of both Joseph's touch and the healing wound. Joseph dropped his other hand to rub slowly over Grey's crotch. Helpless between the sensations, Grey shuddered. It had been so long since they had touched in this manner. 

Joseph took Grey's lips again, his stroking hand bringing Grey to hardness. This would be no rough-and-tumble session as the two used to have. Grey tried to shut out the sensations making his head swim. "I can't kill you," he gasped hoarsely. 

"You must." Joseph was without mercy, biting into Grey's neck to draw a moan from him. "Make love to me and kill me," he repeated. "Let me die feeling you inside me. I want you so much," he murmured. 

Grey moved now, taking Joseph's face between his hands and kissing hard, thrusting his tongue deep inside the man's mouth. Joseph yielded completely, his hand still on Grey's cloth-enclosed groin. The two men slipped out of their thin, loose clothing and used it as a bed. Grey, denied his lover's body these many years, took his time and explored it anew. It might as well have been new, so devoid of cushion was the flesh. Joseph arched into each caress, reveling in every stroke of a hand or tongue. Grey listened to the flow of blood through Joseph's veins, the strain of his breathing and realized that he was right. He would not survive much longer. Grey dipped his head to hide the tears that streamed down his cheeks. 

An hour later, Grey emerged alone from under the building. The Capo was waiting. "Go to bed," the man ordered. Grey stared at him in shock, realizing the man had known all along that Joseph had no intention of leaving the hole alive. Numb, envying Joseph his death, Grey obeyed. 

Grey could not sleep. He sat staring in the darkness at the empty cot beside him. His mind was sluggish, cloaked in blackness and mud. Father Braun came out of the darkness and sat beside him. Grey did not acknowledge the priest, though he could not avoid noticing him. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." When Grey did not react, Father Braun added musingly, "Matthew 5.4." 

Grey turned his head away. "I am not a Christian, Father." 

"And yet you are respectful." The priest leaned back and stared at Joseph's empty cot thoughtfully. "Neither was Joseph a Christian, and he was respectful; even of the Confessional." 

"Did you tell him I would heal?" Grey asked quietly. 

The priest was silent for an astonished moment. "In truth, he told me. I did not credit his words until you showed me." 

"Leave me be, Father." Grey closed his eyes and huddled in upon himself. He felt the priest's hand squeeze his shoulder. It was too much trouble to understand the words he heard the man speak, and he ignored them. The presence nearby provided a buffer, anchoring Grey and he accepted it after a few minutes. But he did not sleep that night. 

\------------------------------------------------

Spring eventually came. Grey had become increasingly ghost-like amid the other prisoners. The capos kept a close eye on him after Joseph's death. The commandant ordered that surviving prisoners gather the bodies of the dead and burn them to ashes. Grey was put on that detail for a time. If the commandant paid any more attention to him than the others, he was incapable of noticing. The news occasionally penetrated his fog, brought to his attention by Father Braun. The priest seemed determined to keep Grey focused on the present and not dwelling on Joseph's death, unaware that it was Grey who had actually killed the young man. 

During January, the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began to resist being transferred to the concentration camps. Around that same time, the Nazis ordered all Gypsies arrested and sent to extermination camps. In February, the Romanian government sent a proposal to the Allies to transfer seventy-thousand Jews to Palestine, but neither Britain nor the U.S. responded. Grey heard that without surprise. He had observed all along that, though these countries condemned the Nazi actions, they did not care to do anything to help the persecuted. At last Germany suffered a defeat; its army surrendered at Stalingrad. And in March, Bulgaria stated its opposition to having its Jewish citizens deported to the camps. 

Grey, working in the pits again, loading a cart with rubble, barely noticed when something struck him, blackness settled so quickly upon him. 

\-----------------------------------------------

He woke to the awareness of other Immortals. Their presences hit his senses simultaneously, and he could not tell how many there were. He realized he was pressed between two warm bodies. They lay on bedrolls, with blankets snugged tight to their chins. The body in front of him was female, and familiar in how it fit against his. The one behind was male and only barely less familiar. Fingers brushed his forehead and he looked up into Tran's eyes. 

"Hey, you," Tran greeted him, voice thick. "Fancy meeting you here." 

Mariah and Dige stirred. Still numb, Grey turned his head to look at each of them. Mariah's hair, he suddenly noticed, reached only as far as her chin. He stroked the tangled wisps in mild surprise. Dige pushed him up and they offered him a canteen. He drank and broke into startled coughing, the fog beginning to clear at last. "Vodka!?" he sputtered. 

"You don't want to look in a mirror, Grey. You look awful," Dige opined. The smile left his face when Grey looked directly at him. 

Grey mustered an answering smile that felt alien to his skin. "What took you so long?" 

Tran laid his warm fingers against the naked flesh on Grey's head. "You are not the only Immortal in Germany. Nor are you the only one in a concentration camp. And because we are non-Aryan, we could not simply slip into Berlin and find the records that might have told us where to look. We didn't even know anything was wrong until you didn't return in September." 

July, 1934 to March, 1943. Grey had spent almost nine years in Meerschweine. They pressed cold stew upon him which he ate slowly, feeling his body right itself and strength seep through his bones. He finished the stew and looked around. "Where are we?" 

Mariah answered, "Not far from the camp. Dige shot you. Several times. Then we just collected your body when they dumped you in the truck." 

That bothered him. When the truck returned to camp and his body was gone, the prisoners would be punished. Father Braun's kind face loomed in Grey's mind. Images of injured, tormented prisoners whirled into his thoughts. He thought about the infirmary, also known by the prisoners as 'the Gate to Hell'. Gazing blankly towards his friends without really seeing them, he asked absently, "Are you carrying explosives?" 

Tran frowned at him. "We have some dynamite." 

"Is it... is it enough to destroy Meerschweine?" 

There was startled silence from the others. They glanced at each other. At last, Tran said, "Not remotely. Why?" 

"I've got to..." Grey shuddered and began to stand up. Dige helped him, but his expression was as doubtful as Tran's. Grey looked at Tran. "You can't know what they're doing. I've got to destroy that camp." 

"Then what?" Tran demanded coldly. 

"Then what? Get the prisoners away, to safety." 

"You can't do it." Tran overrode Grey's protest firmly. "WE can't do it. There are not enough of us. There are too many prisoners and no place to hide them, nor is there truly any place of safety we can get them to." 

"There must be! These people are being tortured to death!" 

"No one will help these people," Tran stated, and shook his head. "There was a ship taking Jewish refugees out-" 

"I know about that. The St Louis. But that was YEARS ago!" 

Tran went still, radiating contained anger. He glared at Grey. "I never heard of the St Louis. Just over a year ago, a ship carrying seven-hundred and sixty-nine Jews fled Romania for Palestine. The British authorities would not allow the passengers to disembark. It was destroyed by a Soviet submarine when it sailed into the Black Sea a few months later." He drew in a breath again. "You cannot help that many people. What are there, two thousand, three, in that camp of yours?" 

"I don't know. Maybe three thousand." 

Tran stared emotionlessly at Grey. "Even if we could find safe haven, we cannot take three thousand people far. How could we feed them? Where would we shelter them? How long do you imagine it would be before the Nazis would catch them. And us?" 

"Tran, I can't leave them there. I KNOW what they are suffering!!" 

"No." Tran stepped forward and gazed up at Grey with sharp, angry eyes. As he spoke, his voice grew increasingly ragged. "I thought you were dead. Then I dreamed of you, I heard your voice! For five years I have done NOTHING but search for you! If I have to, I will kill you and carry your body home." 

Mariah cut in. "Tran, don't." 

The small man balled his hands into fists, staring indignantly at her. He whirled away and walked stiffly off into the trees. Mariah and Dige exchanged glances, then pressed more stew upon Grey. He ate it, but could not taste it. The clothes they had put on him suddenly seemed too tight, heavy and constricting. He yanked at his collar frantically. His two friends held him until the panic attack passed, leaving him gasping and sweating. They helped him sit and finally released him. He was aware of them nearby. Tran returned later. He did not talk to Grey, but did bring a blanket and drape it across the tall man's shoulders. 

When night was at its darkest, he came back to himself. The darkness was as familiar to him as his own soul. He followed a compulsion to get to his feet. He dropped the blanket and began to walk in the direction of Meerschweine. He knew the direction, for he could hear the voices of the prisoners in a steady, wailing whisper. I want to live. Lord, help me. Help me. Help me. The whisper overrode his thoughts and he followed it. 

He walked into a living, breathing body. The impact distracted him, and he found himself staring down at Mariah. The voices vanished as he focused on her. She looked like a ghost in the dim starlight. She spoke, then, in the language of her childhood. "You made me tell you what Ben Sur had done to me. Then you countered each memory of pain with a new one of pleasure. Just telling you helped purge my soul." 

He blinked at her, then bowed his head to touch their foreheads together. He drew a shuddering breath and whispered, "Tran is cold. He always has been; he had to be. Dige's experiences are limited, he can't understand." 

She responded, her voice low and soft as the wind. "Do you think I can understand?" 

"Yes. You know what it's like to be helpless, and afraid. You know what it's like to be rescued from a situation you cannot save yourself from." 

They sat on a fallen tree, huddling close together. Shivering as he spoke, Grey described everything that had touched him at Meerschweine. When he reached Joseph's murder, he choked as he spoke. The part of himself which he thought was dead woke. His heart screamed pain at him, as though it were clutched in someone's fists. Only Mariah's staunch presence, for she had slipped into his lap and given him something to cling to as he rode through this storm, kept him sane. To Grey, Mariah represented a peculiar balance between he, who had killed Joseph, and Joseph, who had desired death and a pleasurable end to guilt and suffering. Grey's heartbroken sobs were all he himself could hear for a few moments. 

Two presences washed over them, easily identifiable as Tran and Dige. Tran knelt at Grey's back and pulled the man's head up against his shoulder. He stroked Grey's skin, gently. After a moment, he asked, "Can you be rational in this?" 

Grey felt his heart sink. It was hopeless. "Yes. But I think I could go mad if I don't do something for these people." 

Tran sighed, but Grey felt him nod. "In our search for you, we made contact with several resistance groups. We can take five - perhaps seven - and get them to the rescue stations." 

Grey closed his eyes. Tran was offering a compromise. Realistically, there was indeed no way to rescue the entire camp. Meerschweine was small, as far as the camps went, but well-guarded. Most of the three-thousand prisoners needed medical care and all were malnourished. He idly considered killing the commandant. But no, the man would probably only be replaced by someone just as bad if not worse. Grey thought, There will come a time when you are held to blame for your actions, monster. If not before your death; then the gods will have you, after. 

\----------------------------------------------

They spent the rest of the war rescuing people from Meerschweine and other concentration camps. Father Braun was in the first group they rescued. He handled the shock of seeing Grey fairly well, though the others did not recognize the now healthy-looking Immortal. The group soon became expert and was engaged in larger rescue operations, at one point managing to move almost a hundred people. While they did their best, the world kept turning, time kept moving. 

There were successes on the side of the angels. The Japanese government, allied with the Nazis, recalled the diplomat Chiune Sugihara because he ignored the order to stop issuing visas to Jews who came to him. He and his wife, when they ran out of forms, continued to hand-write the visas and give the papers out even while boarding the train that would start them on their journey back to Japan. They saved approximately six-thousand lives. On May 13th, 1943, the German and Italian troops in North Africa surrendered to the Allies. In October, the Danish Underground helped evacuate seven thousand, two hundred and twenty Danish Jews to Sweden by sea. In November, the U.S. Congress began to get on the State Department for not helping the European Jews despite mounting reports of mass exterminations. On January 3rd, 1944, Soviet troops reached the former Polish border. On January 24th, in response to political pressure, the U.S. President Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board. On June 6th, the Allies landed at Normandy. In July, the Swedish diplomat, Raul Wallenberg, arrived in Budapest, Hungary. Over the course of time, he managed to save approximately thirty-three thousand Jews by issuing diplomatic papers and establishing 'safe houses'. On July 24th, the Soviets liberated the concentration camp Majdanek. On October 7th, the Jewish slave laborers at Auschwitz-Berkenau revolted and completely destroyed one of the crematories. In late 1944, Oskar Schindler saved twelve hundred Jews in his charge, by moving them from the Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz. In January, the Soviets liberated Budapest, made their way into eastern Germany, liberated Warsaw and finally reached and liberated Auschwitz. By that time, over two million people, seventy-five percent of them Jewish, had been murdered there. The liberations continued, and the reports by Soviet, Allied and U.S. troops about the conditions they found in concentration camps, sent a shock across the world. On April 30th, Hitler committed suicide. And on May 7th, General Jodl surrendered Germany unconditionally. 

During all this, the atrocities continued. Camps like Meerschweine and Sobibor, once Jews were no longer being sent there, were demolished by the Nazis and planted over so that no trace of them could easily be found. On June 12th, 1944, orders were sent out to kidnap forty thousand Polish children, aged ten to fourteen, for slave labor in the Reich. On November 8th, 1944, the Nazis forced twenty-five thousand Jews to walk over one hundred miles, in rain and snow, from Budapest to the Austrian border. There they collected about the same number of people and force-marched the fifty-thousand to Mauthausen concentration camp. In early 1945, the Nazis began conducting death marches of concentration camp inmates away from all outlying areas as the Allies advanced. And then, finally, the war ended. 

The four Immortals, strung out and weary, haunted by the faces of the people they had rescued (for each rescue only reminded them of all those beyond their reach), returned to their home in the Ukraine. 

\-------------------------------------------

**The Present**

Methos woke, blinking in the darkness. He reached out a hand to tap the base of the lamp, and it lit the room dimly. He smiled, still marveling at this invention. Then he frowned, trying to identify what had awoken him. It came again. A small whimper of distress; a slight clenching of the hand that rested on his chest. The fingers touching him were cold as ice. He turned to look at the sleeping face, twisted in dreams, and brushed at the wetness seeping from under the closed eyelids. He placed his own hand over Grey's, warming the cold fingers. Slowly, Grey's face relaxed, lips forming a single-syllable name. He drifted out of nightmare, into a deeper sleep. 

The old Immortal gently brushed the silver-white hairs away from Grey's forehead. His thoughts turned to the dead mortal. What a gift you gave me, Jo. And a hefty responsibility, if we are together for long. Grey's story explained a great many things, some of which Methos had wondered about, others it had not occurred to him to wonder about. He had thought it was simply an endearing trait, the way Grey always touched him with one hand as they slept. Now it was revealed as an unconscious habit, along with wearing loose collars, sleeping without a pillow, and barely moving in sleep. How nice to receive such a present; a lover whose fears and needs so neatly complement my own. 

For when they first met, Methos had pegged Grey as dominant. The spirited, aggressive man, who would seduce as soon as fight, would surely take top in bed. Methos was willing to endure it for the sake of those bright eyes, as he had endured it with Sanchez. He could enjoy it, after all, though not freely and without reservation. Then, their first time together, he had waited for Grey to try for that position. When the younger man did not, Methos had asked for it and had been delighted with the enthusiastic response. Grey had given himself completely to Methos. 

For all that they had only been together for a short time, Methos had begun to notice and wonder that Grey never hinted at a desire for the top position. Now he was certain he knew why. Grey probably had tried once, with his first lover after Jo. When he took the top he had been unable to escape the memory of killing Jo in that position. It must have been lonely. Grey's looks and personality would largely attract men who expected him to be dominant most, if not all, of the time. Which led Methos to his responsibility. If he stayed with Grey, he was under obligation to heal him. 

Methos traced the lines of Grey's nose and lips. This was something he would have to think about. He doubted that anything short of full commitment on his part could even begin to accomplish it. If he could get Grey to try, the sensitive man would sense Methos' own reluctance, and that might just add to the trauma. Grey's earlier words came back to him. "We're Immortal; there's always time." Well, not always. But perhaps there will be enough time for me to think about this. 

\-----------------------------------------------

There are several versions of the well-known statement attributed to the German anti-Nazi activist, Pastor Martin Niemoller. The exact text of what Martin Niemoller said, and which appears in the Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636 is: "When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church - and there was nobody left to be concerned."

\------------------------------------------

> God Help The Outcasts
> 
>   
>  I don't know if You can hear me  
>  Or if You're even there  
>  I don't know if You will listen  
>  To a humble prayer  
>  They tell me I am just as outcast  
>  I shouldn't speak to You  
>  Still I see Your face and wonder  
>  Were You once an outcast too?
> 
> God help the outcasts  
>  Hungry from birth  
>  Show them the mercy  
>  They don't find on Earth  
>  The lost and forgotten  
>  They look to You still  
>  God help the outcasts  
>  Or nobody will 
> 
> I ask for nothing  
>  I can get by  
>  But I know so many  
>  Less lucky than I  
>  God help the outcasts  
>  The poor and downtrod  
>  I thought we all were  
>  The children of God 
> 
> I don't know if there's a reason  
>  Why some are blessed, some not  
>  Why the few You seem to favor  
>  They fear us, flee us  
>  Try not to see us  
>  God help the outcasts  
>  The tattered, the torn  
>  Seeking an answer  
>  To why they were born 
> 
> Winds of misfortune  
>  Have blown them about  
>  You made the outcasts  
>  Don't cast them out  
>  The poor and unlucky  
>  The weak and the odd 
> 
> I thought we all were  
>  The children of God 
> 
> From Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame


End file.
